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Class _j£Sx7i«^ 

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COPVRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



^ffiiiMi^^^ ^ W ^^ 



Reminiscent Sketches 



BY 



AELLA GREENE, 



AUTHOR OF 

"River, Bird and Star," ''John Peters," 
and other works. 



3 ■> J 1 



33 3 5 * ^ 

J 3 3 ) 3^ >3 



PUBLISHED IN I9O2. 



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CONQRE88« 

Two Coptes Rkjkiveo 

AUG. 3U 19021 

CLAS^XXa Ho. 

d rr 3 4, 

CO^Y 8. 






Copyright. 1902, 

BY 

AELLA GREENE. 



C C jC c «- 

t c • c 



PRESS OF THE BRYANT PRINT, 
FLORENCE, MASS. 



CONTENTS. 



JosiAH Gilbert Holland. 
Dr. N. W. Rand. 
Edward Bates Gillett. 
George M. Stearns. 
Some Honest Bankers. 
Concerning the Forty-sixth, 
In Abolition Times. 
Industries That Were. 
Old Guard Republicans. 
Some **Mrs. Partingtons.'' 
On Boat, Box and Rail. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

ALTHOUGH not a native of Spring- 
field, and although spending 
elsewhere his boyhood and his 
youth, and elsewhere, also, the last ten 
years of his life, Dr. Holland, the author 
and magazine founder and manager, was 
essentially a Springfield man. He had 
intended to become a doctor and he 
located in Springfield to practice medi- 
cine ; but while pursuing elsewhere his 
medical studies he had developed a talent 
for writing ; and this talent he continued 
to develop after locating in Springfield. 
Mrs. Holland, who was a member of the 
numerous family of Chapins, was a 
Springfield woman. At Springfield 
their children were born ; and at 
Springfield he wrote his first article 
that was accepted by a magazine ; there 



6 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

he edited a literary newspaper; and from 
there he went to the South to engage in 
teaching. After that, he returned to 
Springfield and soon there began a career 
in journalism in which he continued for 
nearly a score of years. It was early in 
1856, one of his very busy years, that the 
Springfield city hall was dedicated ; and 
he delivered the address of the occasion. 
At Springfield he wrote ten of his eight- 
een books, including the first to give him 
fame and some material returns, and 
three others that extended his reputation 
and brought him a competence. His first 
book refused by a Springfield publisher, 
he went forth to seek a publisher else- 
where — went to seek and be refused 
again and again, but still to seek, and 
finally to succeed. Then to Springfield 
he returned, rejoicing that he had found 
a man to believe not only in his project 
but in him. From Springfield when but 
little known, he went to lecture in a 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 7 

dozen near-by towns; but when, a few 
years later he had achieved success as an 
author, he was called to speak to audiences 
all over the country. And nine years after 
Tiis address at the dedication of the 
Springfield city hall, he won there, in 
the same city and in the same hall, the 
great oratorical triumph of his life, in 
the words that he spoke to voice the grief 
of thousands of his fellow citizens at 
the death of the martyred president, 
Abraham Lincoln. At Springfield he 
wrote his life of Mr. Lincoln, a work of 
much merit, considering the brief time in 
which circumstances compelled him to 
write it, a work that for its just estimate 
of the character of the great man and for 
a graphic portrayal of his characteristics 
has not been exceeded by other 
biographers. 

On High street, Springfield, is the 
small house which the Hollands owned 
and occupied in the author's earliest 



8 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

hard-working" days. In the northern 
suburbs of the city, and near the resi- 
dence of his friend, the late George M. 
Atwater, is the house that was his home 
when he had won a competence and that 
gave its name of ** Brightwood " to the 
village which grew up in the valley 
overlooked by the mansion. There he 
was living when he sold his interest 
in The Republican ; and he marked 
the event by entertaining there, a party 
of his journalistic acquaintances, and 
there was his home, when, in 1867, 
he wrote the poem '' Kathrina," which, 
published that year, achieved a wide 
popularity. 

Dr. Holland, who had been an active 
member of the North Congregational 
church of Springfield, was one of the 
leading spirits in founding, in 1865, the 
Memorial church, the first undenomina- 
tional church in the country. With him 
in this enterprise were associated his 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 9 

friend George M. Atwater, H. J. Chapin 
and others, with D.J. Bartlett and others 
to join soon after. And for the success 
of this enterprise he was, through the 
trial years of the church, a tireless and 
hopeful worker. Before the beautiful 
edifice at the foot of Round Hill was 
erected that has since been the sanctuary 
of this people, the place of their meetings 
was in the hall of a school building of the 
neighborhood. There Holland was choir 
leader and superintendent of the Sunday 
school. Heartily he sang, and with 
cheeriness he greeted the teachers, as, 
making the rounds of the school, he 
stopped at one class after another, to see 
what he could do, or suggest, to help 
teachers or learners. And if a stranger 
who had attended the morning service 
lingered to see the Sunday school, 
Holland's quick eye discovered him, and 
genuine words of welcome made him feel 
at home, at once, and made him wSO want 



lO JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

to come again that come again he did. 

Having achieved marked success in 

newspaper work and as an author and an 

orator, and the church project that was 

■dear to him having been safely launched, 

Dr. Holland proposed in 1868, to rest 

both from his literary labors and his 

church w^ork and to visit Europe with his 

family for a sojourn of two years. And 

on Sunday, May 26, he gave his friends 

of the congregation and Sunday school a 

farewell address. Every seat and every 

foot of standing room in the hall was 

occupied and every heart thrilled with 

emotion and every eye filled with tears 

as the speaker referred to the enterprise 

so dear to them and to him ; and some of 

them, not so led by any word of his, 

thought, nevertheless, of his career in 

Springfield. That career was begun in 

poverty and obscurity, and was marked 

with assiduous toil that brought at first 

but meagre rewards, and with heroic 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. II 

struggles and alternating defeats. It 
was crowned at last with successes, that, 
though great, were well deserved. And 
they had been so dearly earned they 
would scarcely have increased the vanity 
of one given to glorying in self ; and by 
this man of true humility they were 
gratefully accepted. And not only that, 
they were regarded as an obligation on 
him to try to do still better work. 

Here are some of the utterances in his 
farewell address: — 



I shall not go with this lovely flock of children to 
the new church, singing the Thanksgiving song, and 
taking possession, in the name of the dear Redeemer, 
of those sacred courts, reared by your toils and sacri- 
fices. It is natural that I should be sorry to lose all 
this, And all this is just as surely coming as the 
Memorial church remains true to itself and to its 
Master. A few months more of sacrifice and labor 
and yonder edifice, resounding daily to the stroke of 
the hammer and the songs of the workmen, will echo 
to the peal of the organ, the voice of your own pastor, 
and the busy recitations of the young throng that I 
see before me. All this — the answer of many 



12 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

prayers — the end of long and noble toil, I shall miss; 
but you will witness it, and I shall be happy in your 

-« r\-\7 "Jr "TC" ^ vr 'TT TT 

This church and society will do well to look for 
encouragement in all their struggles to the future. 
Now we see only our difficulties, and are absorbed by 
the toils and sacrifices which our enterprise demands. 
But we are building better than we know. * * * * 
Let us try to lift the veil. Twenty-five, fifty,, 
seventy-five, one hundred years hence ! From year 
to year, from generation to generation, the babe will 
be baptized in yonder church, grow up in the Sunday 
school, stand before the altar as bride or bridegroom, 
and, at last, be carried away amid funeral solemni- 
ties. What songs, what processions, what tears and 
smiles, what ingatherings of converted men and 
women, what feasts of Christian love, shall be in 
those courts of the Lord, when we who had the price- 
less privilege of building them shall be dust ! We 
are shaping the destiny of ten thousand human souls 
that we shall never know and carrying the force of 
ourlives down through the centuries ! 

A few days after the Sunday made 
memorable by his parting words, Dr. 
Holland and family left Springfield, and 
set sail from New York for Europe. 
Letters from him to friends in America 



J0SIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 1 3 

bore abundant evidence of his love for 
liis native New England and especially 
for the town that held his home. One of 
them said, '' I have a great fondness for 
old Springfield and for my many good 
friends there. It was there that I worked 
the work of my life. There I garnered my 
loves, hopes and friendships. There my 
children w^ere born and reared ; and there 
one of them lies buried ; and there I trust 
to lie down at last to rest." This letter 
also said, '' I have been around in many 
beautiful places on this side of the sea 
and have seen many beautiful things, but 
I have not found anything for which I 
would exchange my own home." In this 
letter the w^riter referred to the church 
project at Springfield and spoke with 
gratitude of those who had aided him in 
forwarding the enterprise. 

In 1870 Dr. Holland returned, with his 
family, from Europe. They reoccupied 
his Brightwood home and he reassumed 



14 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

the superintendency of the Sunday school 
that he had relinquished on going abroad. 
He was again amid familiar scenes and 
surrounded by those whom he had known 
for years and in whose welfare he had 
the interest of genuine friendship. By 
some, discontent with such surroundings 
would seem to spring only from selfish- 
ness. Unjust indeed were a conclusion 
like this in reference to this man. 
Remembered are words of his to one 
whom he could trust — words that breathed 
a longing for more work and work in a 
new field. And that field was soon to be 
open to him. When abroad he met Mr. 
Roswell Smith, a business acquaintance 
from America, with whom, as the two 
were standing on a bridge at Geneva, he 
made an agreement to become, on return- 
ing to America, partner in the enterprise 
of publishing a- magazine of which he 
was to be editor and Mr. Smith business 
manager — a magazine that for years bore 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 1 5 

the name of Scribner's, in tribute to the 
editor's friend Charles Scribner, but 
which has long been known as the 
Century. 

There's inspiration in recalling- the 
scene when Holland breathed to a friend 
the project of this magazine of which the 
world had not then heard. The two 
were standing near the Memorial church, 
out from which they had just come, and 
were under an elm down through whose 
branches glinted the radiance of an 
Ootober sun. Holland asked, ''Would 
you like to see an advance copy of the 
initial number of a magazine that I am 
to edit?" To this question came the 
quick response, ''I should," when Holland 
took from an inner pocket the leaves that, 
yet minus covers, and held together only 
by a few stitches, had been forwarded 
from the printers in New York for his 
inspection. As he was turning the pages 
and remarking on the contents, his friend 



l6 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

said, '* and may I ask what the name is 
to be? '* The reply, '* Scribner's '' was 
instantly greeted with hand-clapping. 
To this the ready response was — *' Yes; 
and it had something to do with it '' — 
showing that Holland knew his friend 
understood the christening was done to 
give expression of the gratitude of a 
successful author to the publisher who, 
when others had scorned, believed in 
him and opened for him the door to 
success. And in conducting this maga- 
zine, bearing the name of the man who 
had believed in him, Holland was to have 
his new career — a career which came to 
include, however, as it proved, much 
other work besides that connected with 
the magazine. 

For nearly a year he continued to re- 
side at Springfield, there doing some of 
the editorial work of the magazine and 
from there making trips to New York as 
his duties in connection with that journal 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. \J 

called him; and when, to be nearer the 
office of publication, he removed to New- 
York, he still often visited Springfield. 
He bought a house in Park Avenue in 
the ''Murray hill" neighborhood of the 
metropolis, and there had a pleasant 
home for himself and family ; and they 
soon established congenial relations in 
church and society. Yet ever dear to 
them the old town on the Connecticut. 

After his removal to New York and 
after his Brightwood residence had be- 
come the property and the home of 
another, Holland builded a summer 
cottage at the Thousand Islands which 
he named '* Bonnicastle," There he 
took long vacations, to recuperate his 
energies that were severely taxed by his 
duties. These included caring for the 
magazine of which he was editor and 
caring also for another published in 
conjunction with it. In this second 
career he wrote three novels, one of 



1 8 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

which was *' Sevenoaks," the crowning- 
work of his life. He also wrote several 
poems, and for years he responded to 
numerous calls to lecture, filling, in some 
seasons, as many as sixty engagements. 
Finally, reminded by his physician that 
his health would be greatly endangered 
if he continued to speak in public, he 
gave up lecturing; but he continued to 
conduct the magazine. 

In October, 1881, he returned from the 
Thousand Islands much invigorated by 
his rest there, and w4th courage resumed 
his round of duties at the office of the 
magazines at which he continued for 
about a week, when came a sundown that 
was a daybreak. On Tuesday October 1 1 
he was writing an editorial on President 
Garfield, who had recently died from an 
assassin's shot. Laying down his pen mid- 
way in the article, he went to his home in 
Park Avenue — went home little thinking, 
and none of his family thinking, that, his 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. I9 

earthly journey was near its close. But 
there at early morning came the angel to 
summon heavenward the spirit of the 
singer and saint. Beautiful it was that 
he should be at home when wanted by 
the messenger, even if that home was in 
the midst of the great city whose turmoil 
made the metropolis to him a bedlam. 

The couriers sent to convoy the good 
to the skies are hindered not in their 
mission by any of the material conditions 
surrounding those whom they are to 
escort — finding them whether they are in 
the cottage of the simple countryside, in 
the guarded castle of baron or king, 
pining on the battle plain, clutching in 
their death grasp the broken mast from 
the shipwreck, famishing with hunger 
in the squalor of the hovels of the poverty 
to which wealth scorns to extend the 
helping hand or living amid the luxuries 
of the mansions of opulence. 

In the home of this good man there 



20 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

were the comforts that competence com- 
mands. And thousands of those whom 
his writings and his life had blessed would 
have rejoiced to see the modest elegance 
of his surroundings heightened to the 
splendors becoming royalt}'. There in 
that home the ans^el found him — there 
with those endeared to him by the holiest 
associations; there in the centre of 
business and of the social and religious life 
of the land that he had blessed — there, 
ready to go to a higher life. Painful in- 
deed must it have been to go from those he 
loved. But the One who had raised him up 
to do his work in the world would sustain 
them. He had gazed with raptured 
vision on many beautiful scenes of earth. 
But they were as nothing to those await- 
ing him in the Beyond that he was 
nearing. From the beautiful places of 
earth he was going and going, too, from 
the places of pride and power — from the 
towns by man made urban, towns 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 2 1 

wherein fashion rules with her oppressive 
conventionalities, wherein when men 
are honoroble in competitions thei^e^s 
torturing turmoil and wherein greed for 
gain drives men to strifes and animosities 
of fiendish intensity. From these he 
was going — from what was artificial and 
irksome to a country of lovely landscapes, 
grand mountains, enchanting rivers and 
the leisure of the eternities ! 

Fitting it was, indeed, that the grave 
to hold his dust should be at Springfield. 
And there amid the October glories that 
always enhance the splendors of the 
scenery of his native America, his form 
was laid to rest — there in Peabody cem- 
etery, beautiful '' God's acre " of the city 
which the singer loved so well, there in 
the valley that had been the place of his 
obscurity and poverty, the field of much 
of his toil, and the scene of his first 
successes — there in the valley of which 
he had said and sung many beautiful 



22 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

things that gave him note and enhanced 
the fame of the region whose grandeur 
and whose loveliness he celebrated. 

Fitting that there, at Springfield, 
should be the sepulchre of the good man ; 
and fitting, too, that there those who had 
known him should speak of his worth and 
of his achievements. Words of appreci- 
ation of the man and his work were also 
said in churches of the metropolis, a 
church near his '' Bonnicastle " homeasnd 
churches elsewhere in the land. And 
abundant mention of these memorials 
was made by the press of the country, that 
contained, also, its own ample chronicling 
of the career that had closed and appre- 
ciation of the man who had gone, "' rich 
in a national fame and in an influence of 
inestimable value upon the lives of his 
fellows." His friends had indeed sus- 
tained a great loss in his death. But the 
fragrance of the life that had ceased on 
earth to bloom forever above would re- 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 23 

main below to sweeten all the succeeding 
years. Providence had indeed given the 
friends of Dr. Holland bitterness instead 
of sweetness. And yet, even in their 
^rief, they who mourned might well 
think as his friend Washington Gladden 
said in an eloquent rhythmic tribute read 
at the Springfield memorial, 

'* We drink the cup and grateful find 
The sweet within the bitter." 

Yet to them, came then, and to them often 
since has come, the thought well voiced 
in these lines from Whittier: — 

*' How strange it seems with so much gone 
Of love and life to ^ill live on." 

Josiah Gilbert Holland, journalist, 
essayist, novelist, and poet, was the 
eldest son of Harrison and Anna Gilbert 
Holland, and was born July 24, 18 19, in 
a by-corner of Belchertown, near the 
Amherst town line. This neighborhood 
was known for years by the name of 



24 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

'' Dwight's," attaching to the near-by 
flag station of a railroad running through 
the region, which now has two railroads, 
whose stations are each called *' Pansy 
Park.'* Harrison Holland, whom some 
of the cyclopedia makers mention as a 
Belchertown farmer, had little to do with 
Belchertown and Belchertown farms. 
He did, indeed, have a few acres of land 
on the borders of the township. But he 
was a mechanic; and, with talent for 
inventions, he was busied over his models 
and processes, and with fulling the home- 
made cloth of the farmers of eastern 
Hampshire. This industry he carried on 
in a little mill whose machinery was 
turned by power from a small pond still 
to be seen in the vicinity, though the 
traces of the shop are nearly all gone. 
The meagre house in which the fuller 
lived remained standing long after his 
death, and until his son, who was born 
there, had become a man of distinction. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 25 

To a friend who told the author of visiting 
the house, he replied : *' Yes, and do you 
know, I want to buy the thing and burn 
it to the ground/' This he said with 
emphasis, and as he spoke sadness clouded 
his features, — sadness that came at the 
thought of the poverty of his boyhood, 
and the remembrance of his father's lot, 
looked down upon, as he was, becau^he 
was too absorbed in inventions to make 
money — looked down upon by those to 
whom he was far superior in talents and 
in moral worth. When his son was about 
three years old, Harrison Holland gave 
up his fulling mill enterprise and with 
his family moved to a neighborhood of 
Heath which in after years an admirer of 
the author named '' Holland Dell." Here 
the mechanic had a small house, a small 
farm, and a small shop, in which, from 
timber cut in the region, he made felloes 
for the wagon-makers, who, in those 
times, carried on their business at 



26 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

Belchertown. The boy recalled in later 
years a Mr. Leavitt who used to visit the 
district school that he attended, and lay 
a hand benignantly on his head. To his 
experience in going to Sunday school at 
Heath, Holland thus alluded in a speech 
at a vSunday school occasion in Springfield : 

From the age of eight years until fifteen I at- 
tended Sunday school in a mountain town in Frank- 
lin county ; and not the name nor the face of one of 
the teachers can I remember. I repeat it, not the 
name nor the face of one of the teachers can I re- 
member. And I suppose it is because they did not 
take pains to impress themselves on my heart. But 
I do remember one good Mr. Chapin, whom in the 
winter, when because of the drifted roads no Sunday 
school was held, we boys used to see of a Saturday 
going by our day school to the meeting-house on the 
hill. He had a cane in his hand, and we knew that 
he had a great bandana handkerchief in his pocket. 
In due time we saw him coming back from the 
meeting-house with that handkerchief filled with 
books, slung on his cane across his shoulder. On our 
way from the day school we called at his house and 
got the books, carried them home and read them. 
They were good books ; and I do remember Mr. 
Chapin. For he did something that made us re- 
member him. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 2/ 

Concerning his boyhood at Heath 
Holland was thinking when he wrote : — 

I recall a home like this long since left behind in 
the journey of life ; and its memory floats back over 
me with a shower of emotions and thoughts toward 
whose precious fall my heart opens itself greedily 
like a thirsty flower. It is a home among the mount- 
ains, humble and homely, but priceless in its wealth 
of associations. The waterfall sings again in my 
ears, as it used to sing through the dreamy, myste- 
rious nights. The rose at the gate, the patch of 
tansy under the window, the neighboring orchard, 
the old elm, the grand machinery of storms and 
showers, the little smithy under the hill that flamed 
with strange light through the dull winter evenings, 
the wood-pile at the door, the ghostly white birches 
on the hill, and the dim blue haze upon the retiring 
mountains — all these come back to me with an appeal 
which touches my heart and moistens my eyes. 

When young Holland was about fifteen 
years old, the family moved back to 
Hampshire county, locating again in 
Belchertown. this time, however, in the 
eastern part of the town. After this, 
they lived in a neighborhood near the 
line between Granby and South Hadley. 



28 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

In this vicinity there was a woolen mill 
in which the boy worked for a time ; and 
memories of his experiences there color 
some of the scenes in the story of " Miss 
Gilbert's Career'' and some of the scenes 
of the story of " Sevenoaks." From most 
of the acquaintances whom he met in 
these years Holland grew away, especially 
from a set of boys at a district school. 
From these he cut entirely loose. With 
them he had participated in a few boyish 
pranks, mischievous, perhaps, but such 
as their lenient elders would readily ex- 
cuse. From these pranks it was but a 
step to something bolder, in which the 
others asked Holland to engage. Tradi- 
tion does not tell exactly what this pro- 
posed escapade was. But it was something 
that had *'bad" in it, something against 
which the conscience of the boy warned 
him. His mates urged him. He hesita- 
ted, but it was for only a moment. He 
thought of his father, whom he loved. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 29 

And the question arose in his mind, 
" Would father approve of my joining- in 
the mischief?" "No; he would not," 
said the voice within. And, turning to 
his mates, the boy said, " I shall not go 
with you." And he acted as he spoke, 
resolutely walking away from them. At 
home he told his father, who was ever 
his confidant, what he had done. And 
the father, clasping the boy to his heart, 
looked from his blue eyes more of appro- 
val and delight than words could tell. 

After this Harrison Holland and his 
family lived at Northampton. It was 
concerning him there, but more especially 
concerning him in his home at Heath and 
in his round of tasks there that the son 
was writing when he drew the fine picture 
•of the old time New Englander given in 
that piece of beautifully simple English, 
the poem " Daniel Gray," that begins, 

^' If I should ever win a home in heaven. 

For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray, 
In the great company of the forgiven 
I should be sure to find old Daniel Gray." 



30 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

From Northampton young Holland jour- 
neyed out to other towns and other states 
to find classes to teach in penmanship. And 
to a Springfield friend asking him in after 
years about the extent of his experience 
in keeping '' writing schools," he replied, 
** Well, I taught out here at Warren, up 
at Hinsdale, N. H., and in forty other 
places around New England." This 
reply was made in tones which said ' ' the 
experience was well enough ; but I am 
glad to be beyond it." 

If among the early acquaintances of 
men who gain distinction there are those 
who not only despise them in their youth 
but begrudge them the honestly earned 
fame that brightens their after life» there 
are also some who, appreciating them from 
the first, delight, as they have the right 
to delight, in the successes that have 
given them their name. Though Holland 
worked not to gain glory, he was grateful 
for appreciation and there were times 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 3 I 

when he longed for it. Fully did he 
mean the deprecation that he wrote of 
those who oppose and malign the prophets 
of the world until they are gone, and then 
'* build costly monuments to their mem- 
ory, and when the need of it is passed, 
bestow without st?nt that which would 
have done them great good while living ! '* 
In his years of success, Holland had 
friends of importance in business and 
professional life all over the country, and 
his name was known beyond the seas. 
There were also those who knew him 
when he was like them, unknown to the 
world, and who though still in obscurity, 
rejoiced in the fact that he had become 
famous. One of these, a Greenfield me- 
chanic who was a cousin of the author 
and clearly remembered that others of 
the kindred despised Harrison Holland, 
and, so, his son, used to declare with 
vigorous emphasis, '' But Josiah is ahead 
of them now and I am glad of it.'* 



32 JOSIAH (GILBERT HOLLAND. 

Others in humble life who took an honest 
pride in their early acquaintance with the 
author, were the people of Guilford, Vt., 
where, in his youth, he went in quest of 
a class to teach in penmanship, and where 
he taught a district school instead. One 
of the Guilford farmers to appreciate 
young Holland was Henry Chase, whom 
his townsmen had made superintending 
committee of the district schools, and 
who at the time of Holland's visit was 
also, himself, teaching the school of one 
of the districts. Calling of an evening at 
that place of general resort '' the store,'* 
the young man there met Mr. Chase, who 
said to him after listening to his inquiries 
about young men and women whom he 
could get to join his proposed class in 
penmanship, '' You are just the man we 
want to teach school in one of our dis- 
tricts. The man whom the prudential 
committee hired knew enough but some- 
how he couldn't govern the school and 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 33 

the big boys put him out. But you are 
just the man to keep the school." Holland 
dissented, saying among other things, 
that while he might be qualified to teach 
some '' branches," he was deficient as far 
as grammar was concerned. Mr. Chase 
persisted, and at last he consented to 
take an "■ examination." The two went 
to Holland's lodgings at the tavern, 
where the committeeman asked him 
questions in the branches usually taught 
in district schools in those days, paying 
especial attention to grammar, and closed 
the examination by declaring him amply 
qualified. Holland succeeded in winning 
the respect and love of the pupils and the 
esteem of their parents and taught a good 
school. He soon gave evidence that he 
was ''master of the situation" in that 
school room, that he could rule by sheer 
dominance of will power if that was 
necessary ; but, better, he had the sympa- 
thetic nature that drew the pupils to him. ' 



34 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

And to this day they boast that ** J. G. 
Holland, the author, once taught school 
right here in our own Vermont town of 
Guilford!" They are proud to think 
that, following the custom of the times, 
he boarded round among the families of 
the district and they attach special im- 
portance to the farmhouse where he 
** stayed over Sunday," and take care to 
specify which room of the house it was 
that he occupied. 

When about twenty-one years of age 
Holland began the study of medicine. 
Following the custom of those days for 
the aspirant for admission to the ranks of 
the medical fraternity, to read medical 
works in the office of some physician of 
established reputation, he studied for a 
time with old Dr. Thompson of North- 
ampton, and also took courses of lectures 
at the old Berkshire medical school at 
Pittsfield, from which he graduated early 
in the 40's. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 35 

On his way from Pittsfield to his 
father's at Northampton, he came to 
Huntington (Norwich) hill, where he 
called on Dr. S. D. Brooks, then a young 
physician. He had recently succeeded to 
the practice of the elder Dr. Stickney, 
his father-in-law. And, an epidemic of 
sickness having come upon the neighbor- 
hood, he was in need of a professional 
assistant. He asked Holland to help 
him. The graduate consented, and for 
several weeks he '* took turns " with Dr. 
Brooks in prescribing for the afflicted of 
'' Norridgehill." The two young doctors 
had, from the first, a liking for each 
other that soon grew into a warm friend- 
ship that was lifelong. 

After completing his work as assistant 
to Dr. Brooks at'^Norridge hill," Dr. 
Holland returned to Northampton, and 
there had headquarters while casting 
about for a field in which to set up in 
practice. He finally fixed upon Spring- 



36 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

field, and there formed a partnership 
with Dr. Bailey. And people are still 
living who rememberthefirm of ''Holland 
and Bailey, physicians and surgeons, 
Springfield, Mass." They had some 
patronage, but Dr. Holland, who, from 
the first, did not like the work of the pro- 
fession which he had chosen, devoted 
what time he could find writing literary 
articles, one or two of which were 
accepted and published by the Knicker- 
bocker magazine. Then as '*a refuge 
from uncongenial pills and the more un- 
congenial lack of an opportunity for 
dispensing them," he edited and was one 
of the publishers of ' ' The Bay State 
Weekly Courier," which was issued 
simultaneously at Springfield and Chico- 
pee. But this publication proving finan- 
cially unsuccessful, the project was 
abandoned. Dr. Bailey finally located at 
Pittsfield, where he became well-to-do 
and where he lived and died. Soon after 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 37 

giving- up his experiment of the Courier, 
Dr. Holland taught a private school at 
Richmond, Va., and later went to Vicks- 
burg. Miss., where, after a year of hard 
work, he succeeded in establishing a 
system of graded public schools somewhat 
on the New England plan. Of these he 
was superintendent from the first, and he 
demonstrated not only that he could 
organize, but could manage them. When, 
however, he had consummated .so auspi- 
cious an achievement in his undertaking, 
he abandoned it, illness in his family 
leading him to resign his position and 
return to Springfield. Dr. Holland in- 
sisted on discipline in the schools that he 
managed at Vicksburg ; and in referring, 
in the time of the civil war, to his expe- 
riences down South, he facetiously re- 
marked: " I may justly claim the honor 
of having thrashed more southern rebels 
than any other one Yankee." 

Soon after returning to Springfield Dr. 



38 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

Holland began work on The Republican. 
The salary, which was moderate the first 
year, was increased the second year; and 
the third year Dr. Holland became an 
owner of one-fourth of the paper and the 
printing business connected with it. 

In his work as a journalist Holland had 
learned something of the history of 
various towns of the '* river counties" 
and Berkshire, and conceived the idea of 
writing a history of Western Massachu- 
setts. In collecting the data and prepar- 
ing the copy for the proposed work he 
was industrious and painstaking. The 
chapters appeared serially in The Repub- 
lican, and were issued in two volumes in 
1855. Soon after this there appeared in 
that paper a series of ' ' Letters from a 
young man in the city to his sister in the 
country," in which the correspondent, 
''Max Mannering," who, as it finally 
came to be believed, was Dr. Holland, 
** did up " in humorous vein local people. 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 39 

It was about this time that the colonial 
tale, ''The Bay Path,'* was published, 
and soon the ''Max Mannering," who 
had stirred up things at such a lively rate 
with his diatribes, appeared as " Timothy 
Titcomb " in a series of ' ' Letters to young 
people, single and married.*' The 
epistles appeared serially in The Repub- 
lican, and they were read with avidity by 
people of all classes in the field of that 
journal's constituency. 

Desiring to give the "letters " to the 
world in covers, the writer offered them 
to one publisher after another, only to 
be refused. One of these was a Boston 
firm, now forgotten by all but antiquari- 
ans. Other publishers were deaf to the 
writer's appeals. The words used in 
referring to the "letters" were, "All 
very well, but — ." Then was the time 
when he ' ' was in Broadway a unit among 
a million." His writings refused by 
these publishers, he was greatly dis- 



40 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

heartened. Still, he determined not to 
give up his quest, and, bethinking himself 
of a brother-journalist, then a wrtter on 
the New York Tribune, he made his way 
to the office of that paper. This writer, 
who was accounted a good judge of liter- 
atture, and whose delight it was to be 
helpful to authors, said, '' Well, let me 
see, — there's one firm that doesn't publish 
that kind of writing, and there's another 
who wouldn't want the book. Derby & 
Jackson — you have seen them? " '' Yes, 
I have." '' Well, yes, there is one man 
whom you might try, and I'll give you a 
letter to him." ^^ Thank you." And 
the Tribune man wrote: — 

New York, _ 1858. 

Dear Mr. Scribner: Permit me to introduce my 
friend, Dr. J. G. Holland of Springfield, Mass. You 
can rely upon anything that he says. 

Yours truly, 

George Ripley. . 

Armed with this note, Holland called on 
Charles Scribner, whom he found in the 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 4I 

back office of his store, then on Grand 
street. The publisher, who was busy 
with his mail, continued for a few mo- 
ments looking at it. When he looked up 
Holland presented his letter, which the 
publisher read at a glance. Evidently 
pleased with the newcomer, he said : 
'' What can I do for you? " 

' * I have some essays — may I read one ?" 

'* You may." 

The writer took from his vest pocket 
one of the *' essays" or ''letters," which 
was in the form of a newspaper excerpt, 
and read it. The publisher, who had 
listened with close attention, said when 
the reading was done, *' It's enough — I'll 
take the book." 

The author returned to Springfield, 
and soon had the ''copy" for his pro- 
posed book ready. On the last of several 
trips which he made to the metropolis 
prior to the launching of the book, he 
met at the outer door of the Scribner 



42 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

store a brother and junior partner of the 
publisher, and said to him, '' How about 
the book? " '' Well — er — we've gotten 
it about ready to print." And this reply 
was spoken in a tone showing a lack of 
interest. But the author cared not for 
that. The man of faith and of action 
was at the head of the firm, and it was to 
see him that the author called. As he 
started toward his friend's office the other 
Scribner said to him: ''My brother 
Charles is quite enthusiastic about the 
book. He thinks we'll sell 10,000 copies." 
There were 30,000 copies sold in the rush 
for the book immediatel}^ after publica- 
tion, and since then 40,000 more have 
been sold. 

It was about this time that Holland 
wrote the poem, ''Bittersweet," which, 
published by the Scribner house, was 
soon in wide demand. This, while 
abounding in evidence that the writer 
was gifted with poetic talent, contained 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 43 

notions that awakened the opposition of 
the theologians, some of whom censured 
the writer sharply. One attack from 
near home was by Rev. Dr. William F. 
Warren, then minister of the Wilbraham 
Methodist church, but now and for years 
president of Boston University. Asked 
to address the literary societies of Wes- 
leyan Academy at the anniversaries in 
1859, ^^ ^'Ook the subject of ''Sin" for 
his theme, and paid especial attention to 
the teaching of '' Bittersweet," accredit- 
ing the author with talent for real poetry, 
but vigorously opposing his theological 
conclusions. It is but just to say that 
when asked nineteen years later to bear 
testimony to the healthfulness of Hol- 
land's writings as a whole, Dr. Warren 
responded in a happy epistle, giving his 
high appreciation of ''Timothy Titcomb," 
doing this ' ' all the more readily in that 
at a former time " he found " occasion to 
dissent from certain " of his ideas. 



44 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

While in the time of Dr. Holland's 
connection with The Republican, as 
before then and afterwards, Mr. Bowles 
dictated the policy of the paper in matters 
political, Holland was literary editor. 
One of the writers whose verse he printed 
had sent her contributions signed with 
the pen name of '' Lizzie Lincoln." After 
several of these had appeared, Holland, 
as he was opening his mail of a morning, 
said to Clark W. Bryan, whose desk was 
near his: *' Bryan, would you like to 
hear me read something?" — and the 
editor tried to read a manuscript which 
he had just taken from its envelope. 
Then he stopped a moment and tried 
again to read, but tears filled his eyes, 
and after waiting the second time, he 
said, '' Here, Bryan, take it yourself 
and read it, for I cannot." And Mr. 
Bryan took the copy and read the piece 
beginning: — 

" Over the river they beckon to me, 

Loved ones who have crossed to the further side." 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 45 

The poem soon appeared in the paper, 
and with it the announcement that the 
editors must now break the silence and 
inform the public who was the author of 
the inspiring piece — ''Nancy Amelia 
Woodbury Priest, a factory girl at Hins- 
dale, N. H/' The demand for it was so 
great that the paper soon twice reprinted 
it ; and the musical verse has given the 
writer lasting fame. 

In his novels Dr. Holland pictured life 
as he found it. But his object was more 
than entertainment : it was to help hu- 
manity to become what it ought to be. 
If he wrote of the evil in the world, the 
object was not to magnify it, certainly 
not simply to portray it, but to lessen it. 
He spoke to his fellowmen of their sor- 
sows that he might suggest some of the 
uses of those sorrows and some of the 
means by which they might be lessened. 
He recognized the difficulties in life that 
he might speak of the power to be gained 



46 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

by conquering those difficulties and that 
he might aid in the struggle for mastery. 
He thought people could be bettered 
more surely by writings that had the 
hopeful spirit than by those filled with 
the idea that things are going to the bad. 
So, while he could, and did, depict the 
objectionable to denounce it, and to warn 
against it, he preferred to portray things 
as they ought to be. 

Of the worth of his earlier works 
Holland had a very modest estimate. 
To an admirer he wrote that he thought 
his first books no better than mere ex- 
periments and said: ''There was a time 
w^hen I hoped to write something differ- 
ent. But now my youth and even my 
middle age are passed, and the great 
book hasn't been written. I suppose that 
every writer feels like this ; and that even 
hope itself may keep alive, one must 
always see something better to do than 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 47 

he has done. Blessed is that man of 
whom it can truthfully be said, ' He hath 
done what he could.' '' 

It was after this that his career as 
magazine conductor came in, with his 
further work in novel writing. '' Seven- 
oaks '' compelled even some of his captious 
critics to admit his genuine power. Well 
pictured are the backwoodsman, ** Jim" 
Fenton, and the scenes in which he 
figures. In these scenes he is made to 
act with an ideal bravery and still to act 
naturally, and his acts are made the 
pivots on which events turn in the 
dram.a, whose unfolding brings the in- 
ventor, Paul Benedict, finally to the 
possession of his dues for his inventions, 
and brings to his doom the scoundrel, 
Robert Belcher, who has robbed Benedict. 
The author's father was an inventor and 
was cheated out of the returns for his 
inventions. It was natural that Holland 
should set forth his excellences and 



48 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

should also multiply features in his life 
to make them fit the events of the story. 
When it was suggested to the author that 
some of the experiences of Belcher re- 
minded the reader that the scenes of the 
story were laid in America, and in the 
time of such operators as ''Jim" Fisk 
and ' ' Boss " Tweed, Holland replied, as a 
knowing smile dawned on his face, ' 'They 
had something to do with it.'' That 
Holland felt more nearly satisfied with 
his work in producing " Sevenoaks " than 
he did with other efforts of his in novel 
writing, is certain. A friend who had 
written a review of the work and sent 
him a proof, received a letter from Hol- 
land, saying: *' It is unusually well 
written. I am glad to see it and to thank 
you for it." This proved Holland's last 
letter to his friend, and bore date of 
August, 1 88 1. 

Holland was in the truest sense demo- 
cratic; and no subsequent good fortune 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 49 

of his elevated him above those whom 
once he knew. He w^as just the man to 
appreciate natures like his own, and it 
was natural that in writing a sketch of 
the lamented Garfield he should say, 
*' His sympathy for the poor drew to him 
the hearts of the world." It was as he 
wrote this sentence that he laid down 
his pen and went home to rest and return 
to the task on the morrow — a plan that 
was changed by the beckoning heaven- 
ward that came before daybreak. Well 
was it said that the words he wrote of the 
martyred president, would have been 
appropriate for his own epitaph. 

In this letter bearing date at Hornells- 
ville, N. Y., there's a picture of Holland's 
life in one of his busiest years. 

On the lecture wing, over my house, in New 
York, the other day, I made a dive, and took up and 
brought along with me, a package of letters, includ- 
ing one from you. You ask for my health and my 
interest in religious matters. I am very busy ; in 
fact, 1 never worked harder than since taking up life 



50 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

in the great bedlam. What with writing, lecturing, 
and taking care of the magazines, my time is fully 
occupied. My health is fairly good, and I remain 
sufficiently orthodox for all practical purposes, yet 
sufficiently heterodox to excite the interest of the 
New York Observer. But my room is getting ':old 
and I must not sit here writing longer. Yet cold or 

warm, I am always your friend, 

J. G. Holland. 

To the same friend, when applying for 
an autograph for some one who had 
solicited it, the author wrote: '*I am 
very busy, and have only the time to 
send the autograph for which you ask 
and to say that I am always your friend, 
J. G. Holland.'* This reminds one of his 
facetious inscription in the autograph 
book of a Springfield high school girl, 
years before : ' ' You ask for my name ? 
Why, I haven't even won such a thing 
for myself. Nevertheless, I am always 
your truly, J. G. Holland." 

It was a compliment to Dr. Holland 
that his fellow citizens of Springfield 
should ask him to speak at their demon- 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND 



51 



stration over the death of Abraham 
Lincoln. For that was an occasion tre- 
mendous with the awful grandeur of a 
tragedy that had robbed Americans of their 
greatest leader, and had smitten down that 
champion of freedom who was at once 
the wisest and the bravest of them all. 
He took the helm of the ship of state at 
the beginning of troublous times: and 
with nothing recorded in history to give 
hint of the right course to pursue, but 
looking to God for guidance and resolv- 
ing to take counsel of his own conscience 
in matters of right and wrong, he set out 
to sail an unknown sea. Following his 
own intuitions in defiance of the threats 
of those who should have been friends 
but who persisted in being enemies, and 
compelled also to disregard, at times, the 
advice of those who aimed to be friendly, 
he brought the nation's craft through the 
rocks and shoals of waters hitherto un- 
traversed by the navigators of earth, 



52 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

safely over the billows of that ocean 
when lashed into fury by the tempest of 
a civil war, that for intensity of terror 
was unprecedented in the annals of na- 
tions. And, now, when, by the blessing 
of Heaven, he had brought the ship of 
state safely to anchor in the port of 
peace, some of those who had failed in 
their efforts to wreck the craft, became 
maddened at the futility of those attempts 
and descended to the lowest kind of cow- 
ardice, and by assassination wreaked their 
vengeance on the man whom they could 
not turn from doing his duty in the cause 
of his country and theirs. 

It was to address them at their demon- 
stration over the fate of this illustrious 
man that the people of Springfield had 
asked their townsman to speak, and, 
grateful for the honor, but too sensible 
to be vain over it, he came to the occasion 
to do his work well. 

Sharing in the indignation which 



JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 53 

Springfield people in common with other 
loyal men and women of the country felt 
at the terrible crime that had been per- 
petrated, he, yet, counseled to cherish 
the spirit of forgiveness towards the 
murderer of the nation's truest friend, 
and, while sympathizing with the Amer- 
ican people in their loss, pictured 
Abraham Lincoln praying for those who 
slew him. Here follow some of the 
orator's words on the occasion : 

O friends, O countrymen, I dare not speak the 
imprecations that rise to my lips as I think of this 
wanton extinction of a great and beneficent life. "^ * 
* " For somehow I feel the presence of that kindly 
spirit and the magnetism of those kind eyes asking 
me to forbear. * - '-' ^ And the curse rising like 
a bubble from the turbid waters within me breaks 
into nothingness in the rarer atmosphere which he 
throws around me. ^ * ^ * 

Ah, that other shore ! The commander-in-chief is 
with his armies now ! More are they who are with him 
in victory and peace than they who tread the earth- 
The soldiers of the republic pitch their white tents, 
and unfold their banners, and sing their songs of 
triumph around him now. Not his the hosts of worn 



54 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 

and wearied bodies ; not with him the riddled colors 
and war-stained uniforms. Upon his ears breaks 
nevermore the dissonance of booming cannon, and 
clashing sabres, and dying groans. But youth and 
life troop around him with a love purer than ours, and 
a joy that more than balances our grief. 



DR. N. W. RAND. 

HE was a lofty soul, gifted with great 
capacity for seeing and for express- 
ing spiritual truth. Nature spoke 
to him with her many voices, and he under- 
stood those voices, and in heeding them 
made his life beautiful. With awe he 
gazed upon the grandeur of the mountains, 
and the beauty of the lovely landscapes 
delighted him. The splendors of the 
morning gave him joy, and to him they 
were the glories of the heavenly country. 
Serene as the glow of sunsets that he 
loved, his spirit deepened its calm as he 
drank the loveliness of their colors. He 
knew something of the science of music, 
and he was acquainted with the spirit of 
song and understood and appreciated the 
harmonies of its sweetest and its grandest 
numbers. The chanting of the winds 



56 DR. N. W. RAND. 

inspired him, bird songs were his en- 
trancement, and many is the brook of the 
hill country where he lived 

The music of whose liquid lip 
Had been to him companionship. 

Dr. Nehemiah Wheeler Rand was son 
of Thomas Prentice and Lydia Wheeler 
Rand of Francestown, N. H., and was 
born in that town September 14, 1853. 
There he passed the years of his boyhood, 
attending the district school in the neigh- 
borhood of his birthplace, working on his 
father's farm, and going to meeting in 
the country meeting-house. He studied 
at Francestown academy and taught 
district school a few terms, and is recalled 
as an active boy, healthy and strong, 
with a bright mind and gentle manners. 
He was always truthful and always re- 
spectful to his superiors and to people of 
age. Quick to learn, he yet did not have 
the vanity of some boys of ready minds. 



DR. N. W. RAND. S7 

nor was he inclined to boast of his aptness 
before boys and girls of dull intellect; 
nor did he taunt them with their igno- 
rance. He also resisted the temptation 
to ''idle away time/' which comes to 
talented boys, from their knowing that in 
an hour of application they can master 
the lessons set for them to learn, — lessons- 
which their classmates would be com- 
pelled to study for a day and then not 
see into the subjects as far as they could 
penetrate at the first glance. 

Young Rand's experience in keeping 
district school proved that he had capacity 
to control boys and girls, and inspire 
them to learn. The people of a district 
in which he taught remember that 
when he kept it their school was winner 
of one of the prizes offered for the best 
two schools in the district of half a dozen 
towns in their section of New Hampshire. 
The committee of award adjudged Rand's 
school the second best, and the prize won 



58 DR. N. W, RAND. 

was an encyclopedia for the use of the 
pupils of the school. Young Rand is 
also remembered for the interest which 
he, with other students at the academy, 
took in the Ivceum debates that were 
maintained in term time, debates managed 
by the teachers and students of the 
institution, but participated in to some 
'extent by men and women of the town. 
It was at some time in these years that 
Rand's attention was turned toward the 
medical profession, though exactly what 
led him in that direction is not known. 
If the fact that two of his father's kindred 
were doctors determined him to try to be 
a doctor, too, that fact does not account 
for his choosing the homeopathic school, 
for they were of the other sort. He at- 
tended courses at Dartmouth, the Boston 
university and the New York homeopathic 
college, studying also with Dr. Gallinger. 
who is known to the country at large for 
his political career. After a brief and 



DR. N. W. RAND. 59 

"professionally successful experience with 
Dr. Warren of Palmer, the young man 
started for himself in Monson, in 1879, 
when twenty-six years of age. His sound 
health, his ardent interest in his work, 
his native courtesy and the other virtues 
of a good physician made him notably 
popular. Here also he found his wife. 
Four years after making his home in 
Monson he married Miss Jenny Peck, a 
native of the town and a teacher in the 
academy. They made a wedding tour of 
several months in Europe, and gave 
especial study to the German language 
and the German people. During this 
sojourn abroad Dr. Rand's practice was 
taken by his brother, Dr. John P. Rand, 
who had completed his professional 
studies, and who remained associated 
with him several years after his return 
from Europe, afterward going to 
Worcester. The brothers were always 
closely conjoined. The ties of consan- 



6o DR. N. W. RAND. 

guinity counted much with the Rands, 
and this affection of the brothers for 
each other was but in keeping with their 
love for their sivSters, and the veneration 
of all for their father and mother. 

The married life of Dr. Rand proved a 
happy one. Yet it was but brief. Three 
years after their return from Europe his 
wife died, leaving him with two young 
children, the youngest born but a few 
days before her death. ''A Sheaf of 
Memories," which Dr. Rand compiled 
for his children, tells how Mrs. Jenny 
Peck Rand was prized by her pupils and 
friends ; and in his home he placed her 
portrait with the inscription beneath it 
from Whittier: — 

Sacred to thee am I henceforth, 
Thou in heayen and I on earth, 

lines that expressed the vow of his soul, 
a vow that he kept most faithfully during 
the twelve years that he remained on 



DR. N. W. RAND. 6l 

earth. His exit was in 1898. And the 
grave which holds his dust is by that of 
his wife in the beautiful ''God's acre'' 
overlooking the lovely village where 
they had lived, where they were prized 
and where their names will long be 
cherished. 



EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 

THIS talented man had, and deserved, 
the name of being the most eloquent 
advocate of the Hampden bar. 
There were h\it few in the state to equal 
his capacity for graceful speech and only 
a few in the whole country to exceed him 
in that qualification for the legal pro- 
fession. He understood not only the 
law but the principles of justice on which 
all right law is founded. He was for 
years prosecuting attorney for his judicial 
district and proved himself eminently 
fitted for the functions of that position. 
An accomplished jurist, he deserved 
elevation to the bench of the supreme 
court and would have graced the high 
office of chief justice. An able lawyer 
and an eloquent speaker, it was natural 
that he should be sent to the state senate. 



EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 63 

There he gave evidence of possessing the 
high talent for legislation that fitted him 
not only for a career as congressman but 
for a place in the senate of the United 
States. 

Born in 1817, at South Hadley Falls, 
educated in the schools of that village, 
the old Woodbridge school at South 
Hadley centre, Hopkins academy at 
Hadley and at Amherst college, Mr. 
Gillett next studied law and located in 
practice at Westfield. Naturally public 
spirited, he took a genuine interest in 
things making for the welfare of the town 
of his adoption. iVnd he was welcomed 
by her people to participation in matters 
of importance and , was also invited to 
leadership therein. A religious man, 
Mr. Gillett identified himself with the 
First church of the town. Ever working 
for the general welfare of that historic 
parish, he was still more concerned in 
the religious life of her people, especially 



64 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 

in the spiritual well being and moral 
development of her young men. And 
his interest was manifested in unselfish 
labors for their good and in words that 
spoke the genuine friendship of a chival- 
rous man. 

Gifted with true eloquence, Mr. Gillett 
was in demand to speak on important 
civic occasions. He had come to the full 
of his capacity for speech before the 
Fourth of July celebration had gone out 
of fashion, with its processions, its 
feasting and its oration concerning the 
deeds of Revolutionary heroes warring 
against the oppression of King George. 
And fortunate did that people think 
themselves who could secure Mr. Gillett 
to voice their emotions on the great day. 
There are those who remember his speak- 
ing at a celebration held in a grove near 
the mountain hamlet of North Blanford. 
From hillside homes for miles in every 
direction came the farmers and their sons 



EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 65 

to hear the eloquent man, and they 
listened with interest as he portrayed the 
scenes when the yeomanry hastened from 
their farms to Lexington, Concord and 
Bunker Hill to resist British tyranny in 
arms. Though this speech was not an 
address on the theme of the preservation 
of the national union, the love of country 
apostropnized by the speaker awakened 
emotions of patriotism that kept at full 
tide until, at the breaking out of the 
rebellion, they carried some of the orator's 
listeners into the union army, to fight for 
the preservation of the nation whose in- 
dependence was gained by the forefathers 
he had eulogized. 

Fitting Mr. Gillett's greeting to the 
home comers at the Westfield bicentennial 
— "fathers with hair of molten silver, 
mothers with names dearer and holier 
than all other earthly names, young men 
with vigor crowned, and maidens * fairer 
than the light ' — one and all welcome ! 



66 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 

a thousand times welcome ! ' " Inspiring, 
too, the invitation — '' Let ns build here 
three tabernacles — to the Past, the 
Present and the Future! " 

The lustre of Mr. Gillett's life as a 
man. a citizen, and a friend outshone even 
his talent as an orator. And if in the 
fulfillment of the prophecy which there 
was in his qualifications for statesman- 
ship, he had entered the senate of his 
country, though, in keeping with the 
modesty and the feelings of awe natural 
to the man, he would there have walked 
with reverent tread, so much of a man 
was he that he would not have suffered 
in comparison with any of his prede- 
cessors. His votes would have been 
for the right and his words in support 
of them would have been such that he 
would not have needed to tremble in the 
halls made memorable with the elaborate 
oratory of an Everett and the stately 
speech of a Sumner. He could have 



EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 67 

Stood unabashed even in the halls reso- 
nant forever with the massive eloquence 
of a Webster. Those utterances that 
would have been comparable with the 
efforts of the giants who have given 
America its forensic fame, would still 
have had a chief feature of their signifi- 
cance in the fact that they reflected the 
qualities of so excellent a man as Edward 
Bates Gillett. 

Among those who appreciated Mr. 
Gillett's qualities and enjoyed his friend- 
ship are his former partner Judge Stevens 
of Westfield and Judge W. P. Strickland 
of Northampton, Senator Dawes, R. O. 
Morris, Henry W. Taft and others of 
the legal fraternity, who are still living. 
Among the ministers wiio appreciated 
him were the ancient Dr. Davis of the 
Westfield old church, Rev. Joel S. 
Bingham of the new Second church, the 
accomplished and faithful Rev. J. H. 
Lockwood of the old church of to-day. 



68 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 

Other clerofv atnonof Mr. Gillett's friends 
and admirers were the late and the 
saintly Rev. Dr. S. G. Buckingham of 
Springfield, and Rev. Dr. Richard Salter 
Storrs who have gone and the eminent 
Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington. 

Mr. Gillett once had an ambition to go 
to congress, but he magnanimously stood 
aside, to give his friend, Mr. Dawes 
opportunity for a congressional career; 
and he continued term after term to hold 
his ambition in abeyance. He was so 
genuine about this that everybody said 
that to him certainly belonged the nomi- 
nation of his party to take Mr. Dawes's 
place, when the latter retired or was pro- 
moted to the national senate. And some 
thought Mr. Gillett ought to have been 
sent to the senate without the intervening 
experience of a term in the lower house. 
All other aspirants for the congressional 
nomination as Mr. Dawes's successor 
were fully willing to wait for Mr. Gillett 



EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 60 

to have his honors first. But, come to 
the case in hand, he decided not to accept 
a nomination. This decision took all his 
friends by surprise, and the reason for 
his coming to this conclusion, then a 
mystery, remains unexplained to this 
day. To him the delights of home were 
more to be desired than the splendors 
and excitements of social life at Wash- 
ington, and the income from his profession 
equaled if not exceeded the salary of a 
congressman. Still, to refuse the nomi- 
nation for the place for which he had 
long cherished hopes seems strange 
indeed, especially when a nomination 
meant an election by a large majority. 

Some time after this, when driving to 
Springfield to attend court, Mr. Gillett 
had the misfortune to be thrown from 
his carriage and to receive injuries which 
resulted in what proved a permanent 
impairment of his nervous system. Yet 
so strong was his constitution and so free 



70 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 

from excesses had his life been that it 
was thought he would thoroughly recover 
his health. And he had made such 
progress towards the summit of the hill 
he was climbing that he thought it safe to 
venture to participate in one of the trials 
of the Northampton bank burglars. This 
trial, held in an over crowded court room, 
came upon a very hot day. And the 
effort of the pleader proved too much for 
him, and he slid down the hill again and 
never recovered his health so as to be 
able to take any part in a trial. He bore 
with a brave serenity the deprivation of 
living in retiracy from the active work of 
his profession, and in 1899 died, leaving 
to his family the priceless legacy of a 
name lustrous with the glory of a chiv- 
alrous life. 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

IN some of his qualifications the late 
George M. Stearns of the Hampden bar 
equaled all his contemporaries. In 
other qualifications some of them exceeded 
him. The late Judge David Aiken could 
be as severe in satire. Mr. Stearns's former 
partner, Judge M. P. Knowlton,has as 
ample knowledge of the law as he pos- 
sessed. Judge William P. Strickland 
and others still living as well understand 
the principles of justice as did he. So, 
too, did Edward B. Gillett, Judge Justin 
Dewey and others who have gone, while 
Mr. Gillett, with his great capacity for 
fine speech, exceeded Mr. Stearns in 
genuine eloquence, and he also was the 
more cogent and convincing reasoner. 
But for a peculiar quality of humor Mr. 
Stearns had no equal in the Hampden 



72 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

bar or in western ^lassachusetts, and 
few, if any, superiors in the state or 
throughout the country. This humor 
marked the illustrations which he used 
to enforce his reasonings. While these 
illustrations were striking enough to be 
understood by the dullest mind among 
the chance hangers-on at the courts 
where he practiced, and homely enough 
to appeal to the humblest farmers who 
sat to hear the cases argued by him and 
his opponents, they were always pat and 
ingenious enough to interest the members 
of the bar, and appropriate enough to be 
allowed by the judges. 

Mr. Stearns was able to make himself 
understood by men of all kinds. The 
average man was sure to be on every 
panel, and every jury was likely to con- 
tain men of more intellect, more learning 
and higher social standing. Mr. Stearns 
talked in terms which the commoners 
understood, and yet there was that in his 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 73 

speech to awaken the interest and hold 
the attention of men of more culture and 
more consequence. ' Ca:me the jurors 
from the hill farms of Worthington and 
Windsor, or from the flat lands and quiet 
old families of old Hadley, or from the 
** huckleberry " pastures of Pelham and 
Prescott, or from the wilds around the 
Otis ponds, or from the mill towns of 
Adams and Holyoke, or from the whip 
shops of Westfield, or from among the 
grangers of Granby or Greenwich, or 
from the highlands of Hawley or Heath, 
or from the mines of Chester or Rowe — 
were the jurors commoners, coming from 
any of the coasts, corners or crowded 
marts of the wide bailiwick of the courts 
where Mr. Stearns practiced, they all 
understood what he meant when he 
spoke. 

Numerous and varied were the elements 
of the court constituency of Mr. Stearns — 
a constituency comprising truly *' all 



74 GBORGE M. STEARNS. 

sorts and conditions of men," and he had 
the talent and the experience enabling 
him to acquit himself creditably before 
-them all. He had wit; but, better than 
that, he was discerning enough to see 
when wit was in order and when logic — 
and he had the capacity for logic. Mr. 
Stearns must have been well acquainted 
with the scriptures, for he readily quoted 
from them, and the '' sacred text " whfch 
he employed was generally applicable to 
to the subject under discussion. His 
accomplishments must have included, 
also, an acquaintance with hymnology, 
for he often and happily turned a point 
in his speech with a couplet from an 
ancient hymn. He had no special favor- 
ites among the hymn writers, but he 
drew from Watts, Wesley, Doddridge or 
others the lines that best suited the occa- 
sion. Doubtless those ascended psalmists 
were not disturbed in their serene rest on 
high, nor diverted from participating in 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 75 

the minstrelsy above by Mr. Stearns using 
their numbers in his talk to a jury on 
earth, since even his vigorous voice could 
not reach them there. It must be con- 
fessed that it did not always seem in 
approved meeting-house taste to take the 
sacred psalmody of those old singers to 
use in an argument in a litigation over a 
disputed line fence or in the trial arising 
on some action of tort ; yet the quotations 
were used with effect. Mr. Stearns also 
drew on the novelists and historians to 
enrich his addresses to the juries. What 
delightful humor there was in his mock 
heroic comparison of the narration of 
some conceited fellow on the witness- 
stand to the tales of the great story-tellers. 
He was clever in managing a contuma- 
cious witness; and those who tried to 
deceive him he not only outwitted, but 
annihilated, with the ease of a giant 
slaying pigmies. So watchful, too, was 
Mr. Stearns, that the little men on the 



76 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

Stand and among the lawyers could not 
entangle him in the meshes of any net of 
legal technicalities, to remind him thus 
of the Lilliputians who bound the great 
Gulliver in the story. It often required 
but one or two questions to nonplus the 
boldest dissembler, and send him in con- 
fusion from the stand. These interroga- 
tions came with a tone of irony which, 
once heard, was never forgotten. It 
pierced to the ' ' dividing asunder of the 
joints'* of the most fearless falsifier. If 
anything more was needed to complete 
the discomfiture of the dissembler, a 
withering look from the attorney was 
enough. Yet, having that '* touch of 
nature which makes the whole world kin,'* 
and so prompts a man to the manliness of 
acknowledging his equal when he meets 
him, if Mr, Stearns was beaten by a 
witness in a fair and open encounter, he 
could with the grace of frankness acknowl- 
edge the success of the victor and send 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 7/ 

him off the stand rejoicing in the tribute 
of the attorney to his repartee. A news- 
paper man, who was called in at the 
second trial of a case to testify about 
something which he heard one of the 
contestants say at the former trial, was 
cross-questioned by Mr. Stearns, who, in 
tones of irony, asked, ''Do you, sir, 
remember everything that you hear in 
the courts where you go to report? " 
Then followed more words of the lawyer, 
who tried to belittle the business of the 
newspaper man. The witness responded, 
*' Mr. Stearns, I can remember and repeat 
some of your speeches made at trials." 
''That will do," responded the attorney 
in the most kindly tones possible. And 
he motioned to the witness to leave the 
stand. Taking the hint, the man, amid 
the laughter of the court-house audience, 
walked to his seat. Before coming to 
the court he had rehearsed to himself 
several utterances of the lawyer, so that 



78 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

if the latter had put him to the test he 
could have met it on the spot. Some of 
those utterances appear in this sketch. 

Mr. Stearns hated a hypocrite, and if 
the evidence adduced in the trial of a 
case in which he was engaged disclosed 
an instance of hypocrisy he was quick to 
see the sham ; and the sarcasm of his 
invective in denouncing it was crushing 
indeed. He not -only had the capacity 
for humor, but he was pathetic as well ; 
and no man was quicker than he to see 
when humor was in order and when 
pathos. Nor could any one be handier 
than he was in alternating from one mood 
to the other. Quick to discover the 
humorous phase of a case in w^hich he 
was engaged, he at once made the most 
of that phase, and seeing, then, the more 
serious aspects of the case, he made the 
most of them. He brought those aspects 
home to the minds of the jurors whom he 
addressed, and then with the pathos of 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 79 

genuine emotion, he appealed to their 
hearts, and in closing his speech he left 
them so spell-bound by his eloquence that 
not even the words of any other magician 
of the law who might be matched against 
him could dispel the effect. With the 
art of a master and with * ' the artlessness 
of art," he could alternate ''from grave 
to gay, from lively to severe," affording 
bar, bench and jury high entertainment 
with his humor and his vigor, and keeping 
ever in view the success of the cause 
which he represented — always giving his 
opponents abundant reason to be vigilant, 
and ample opportunity to exercise their 
skill and their might in warding off his 
attacks. They enjoyed these encounters, 
however. 

One thing that made his thrusts enjoy- 
able was the fact that, vigorous though 
they were, they were still good-humored. 
Sharp though the blade that smote, it 
was not poisoned. And while Mr. 



80 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

Stearns's denunciations were often se- 
vere, they were generally deserved. 
There was a charming naturalness in his 
voice and manner when he referred to 
his '*good and saintly Brother Gillett/' 
or to the fondness of his '' veteran friend, 
Judge Aiken," for fast driving, and his 
liking for * * putting a witness through 
the inquisitorial rack of a cross-examina- 
tion." In a litigation arising over a piece 
of land connected with the John Clarke 
estate at Northampton, Stearns, who was 
counsel, was opposed by Charles Delano. 
The latter owned a farm on which he 
kept thoroughbred cattle. Delano's 
clients, Mr. Stearns thought, were seek- 
ing land which did not belong to them. 
To show the possible extent of their 
aggression he exclaimed, *' Why, if they 
keep on in this way they'll absorb even 
the acres where my Brother Delano's 
fine Jerseys carol and cavort over the 
ofreensward ! " 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 8 1 

Mr. Stearns's humorous illustrations 
and his severities of satire were not only- 
allowed by those judges who cared little 
for the rules of court decorum, but by 
those who cherished those rules as sacred 
and strenuously insisted on their observ- 
ance by bench and bar. This, which by 
some would have been called leniency, 
those judges accorded the unique advocate 
as something that was his due. It came 
to him not merely as their recognition 
that he was a man of talent. It was that, 
but it was more than that. It was evi- 
dence that an unw^ritten law had long 
obtained in the courts of the western 
counties that Mr. Stearns must be allowed 
full freedom of speech. So, also, thought 
the most of the older and more experi- 
enced of the magistrates, who, though 
residing elsewhere in the commonwealth, 
came to preside in the courts of the 
western counties. One of them, the late 
and veteran Judge Ezra Wilkinson, — 



82 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

who, by the way, was as different in his 
tastes as a man from those of Mr. Stearns 
as it was possible for a man to be, — was 
thought by some to be especially fond of 
the Chicopee attorney. Even some of 
the judges of the Boston bailiwick who 
came to hold court in the western counties 
gave Mr. Stearns ''full swing." They 
were discerning enough to see that he 
was thought to be ''a power" in this 
region, and that he was here allowed 
swing that would not be accorded to any 
other pleader, and was given that liberty 
because he was deemed worthy of it. 

'' Convulsed court and jury with laugh- 
ter " is a phrase so often used by the 
reporters of trials at law that it has 
become hackneyed. It is also an extrav- 
agance, when used in the estimate of the 
effect of the speeches of most pleaders at 
the bar. But its full meaning was never 
in excess of the fact of impression created 
by '' the inimitable Stearns." If, when 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 83 

he spoke, Chief Justice Lincoln F. 
Brigham was presiding, there rippled 
even on that placid sea of composure, 
the face of the solid and urbane magis- 
trate, occasional waves of laughter. 
Well-suppressed were they, indeed, and 
not at all tumultuous and foaming, but 
merry ebullitions, nevertheless. The 
courteous Judge John P. Putnam, who 
was so much in favor with the legal cult 
of Boston, liked to come to the western 
counties, where he could hear Mr. 
Stearns's wit. Judge Gardner, who pre- 
sided in a trial when Mr. Stearns 
defended a client who had been slandered, 
looked serenely and approvingly on as 
the indignant attorney, exceeding all his 
former feats of terrible denunciation, 
hurled back the venom of the calumnia- 
tors, and, fairly boiling with wrath, lik- 
ened them to infuriated wolves, and even 
to fiends of darkness, and calling them 
then too cowardly to be classed with high- 



84 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

way robbers, left them smarting under 
the caustic description of liars and chief 
hypocrites of the century. Judge Gard- 
ner's charge to the jury showed that he 
did not think the invectives of Mr. 
Stearns unwarrantably severe, and the 
accused was triumphantly acquitted. 

But it occasionally chanced that a 
lawyer from Suffolk or vicinity, newly 
elevated to judicial honors, did not appre- 
ciate Stearns. Realizing to the full the 
significance of the fact that he bore a 
commission, given him ''by his excellency 
the governor, by and with the advice and 
consent of the council," one of these new 
magistrates comes to Springfield to hold 
his first ''court in the country." To 
your genuine Bostonian Springfield was, 
in Mr. Stearns's day, nothing but a 
country village. Filled with the idea of 
the importance of the ermine and of the 
dignity of decorum appropriate for judges, 
and of the reverence due them from the 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 85 

members of the bar, he sets forth from 
his hotel, accompanied by the sheriff, 
and, thus escorted enters the temple of 
the law. That morning a man of stocky 
stature and clad in unpretending garb of 
brown, goes forth from a roomy, but 
modest and homelike, house in Chicopee 
for an hour's drive. He has a horse 
which his man ** Maurice" has carefully 
groomed and brought to him, hitched to 
a plain buggy, and is accompanied by a 
plainly attired and bright-looking woman 
and their daughter. When the roadster 
has measured the distance well out on 
the plains toward Ludlow, the driver 
calls out ''Whoa!" at the top of his 
voice, repeating the vociferation, as if 
enjoying thus to exercise his vocal organs. 
Returning, the party reach their home at 
8.30 o'clock, when the man sets forth for 
another drive. With him goes his ven- 
erable mother. As, on reiurning, he 
assists the veteran to alight, he remarks 



86 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

to the other woman, who has come to the 
door, ** Good-bye, Em — Fve a case that's 
to be called at ten o'clock, and a new 
fellow is coming up from Boston to show 
off before us country lawyers. " He hears, 
as he drives away, *' Til risk you, George/* 
and as he goes he soliloquizes, '' Just like 
the girl — she's a treasure, true as steel 
and good as gold." He halts a moment 
before the savings bank, to the door of 
w^hich comes a small man with keen eyes, 
who has just written '* Henry H. Harris, 
treasurer," on a report to be read at an 
approaching meeting of trustees. The 
two men chat in good-humored banter 
over the '' size and style " of a '' stepper " 
which the banker has just bought ; and, 
saying, '' Harris, I'll bet on you every 
time," the man in the buggy is soon 
whirling away toward Springfield. Turn- 
ing from Main street, he drives toward a 
livery stable, where the horse stops 
without hint by word or rein from the 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 87 

driver, who alights and shakes hands 
with the stable-keeper. Pausing to have 
a word or two with '' Billy" Collins or 
Waldo R. Forrester about horse training 
and ** matching pairs," and give '*Bill" 
Pynchon a bit of advice about '* winter 
boarding" of horses, he turns to a hard- 
viwSaged habitue of the stable office and 
jokes him about his resemblance to a 
judge, and then goes to the barn to pat 
his horse and to give the stable-boy a 
quarter. He now sets forth for the 
court-house and enters the court-room as 
the case is about to be called in which he 
is engaged, and which, until he arrives, is. 
in the hands of a younger lawyer. This 
man, who is proud to have the other as 
senior counsel, notes his coming, and 
approaches the chair where he is seated. 
One foot rests on the round of the chair 
in front of him, where the other is soon 
placed. Without intending any disre- 
spect to the court, he remains in that 



88 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

position for several minutes, despite the 
fact that his honor, the new judge," is 
glowering at him. He does not even 
think that the frowning is intended as a 
rebuke to him for not coming to court 
clad in a Prince Albert coat, or to chide 
him for the picturesque disposition of his 
feet. With the completest absence of 
concern in his manner, and entirely una- 
bashed in the presence of a martinet of 
the law from Boston, he rises in his place 
as his case is called, which is an action of 
tort, and speaking in a conversational 

tone says, ''Your honor, Mr. and 

myself appear for the plaintiffs, and we 
are ready for the trial to begin." Oppos- 
ing counsel are not ready, and after a 
few moments of consultation between 
lawyers and the court the case goes over 
to a specified later day of the term. The 
man from Chicopee asks for something 
to be granted him and his associate before 
the beginning of the trial of the case. 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 89 

This the judge, who has '* taken a mifif " 
at the lawyer, refuses to grant. And he 
attempts still further to place the straight- 
jacket of *' perfect propriety" on the 
lawyer. Looking up with that inimitable- 
face of scorn which was native with him, 
the pleader says, '* Then, your honor," 
and proceeds to quote from Shaw andx 
other legal authorities in substantiation 
of his request, till the judge, stopping 
him, remarks, '' On the whole, Mr. 
Stearns, I think I'll grant your request." 

At the noon recess the judge asks the 
clerk, '' Mr. Morris, what kind of a man- 
is your Mr. Stearns? " 

*'He? — why, he, your honor, is one 
who knows what's what. He not only 
knows the law, but he knows how to 
apply it. And he can read human nature 
like a book. And everybody likes him, 
unless it is some ninny who is audacious 
enough to try to measure swords with 
him, some knave whose ravScality he has 



90 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

unearthed, or some hypocrite whose 
hollowness he has discovered and held 
up to ridicule — that's who he is, your 
honor." 

'* I see, I see." 

^* Your honor, most folks that don't 
see at first soon find out. But, woe to 
the fellow that don't." 

Just so, Mr. Morris, just so," — and the 
magistrate starts for his hotel. 

Mr. Stearns, for the hearing of the 
rest of whose cases dates have been 
assigned, now starts for home. Crossing 
Court square, he meets that typical 
Yankee, 'Squire Newton, from Monson, 
who, as will be remembered, resembled 
him in build and in his walk, and who 
thus addresses the lawyer : ' ' Mr. Stearns, 
the last time I was crossing the square 
here a man overtook me, who said as he 
laid a hand gently on my shoulder, 
* Hello, George.' That being my name, 
I responded by turning around, when he 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 9I 

said, * Excuse me — I thought you was 
Mr. Stearns.'" ^*Did you kick him?" 
quickly rejoins Mr. Stearns. 

It goes almost without saying that Mr. 
Stearns wins in the trial of the case of 
tort. Several exceptions are asked to be 
sent up to the supreme court ; but they 
are nearly all ruled out. One or two 
that are allowed to go up are in due time 
returned, and a rescript is handed down, 
wherein the writer of the ''opinion of 
the court " '' fails to find reason to inter- 
fere with the ruling of the court below." 

The new judge one day chances to 
meet at his hotel here a lawyer of the 
Suffolk bar, who was a college chum of his, 
and to whom he says at dinner: '' Tom, 
they've a regular trump here in the 
Hampden bar. I was never so taken 
back by a man in my life. Thinking 
him a nobody whom some strange mis- 
chance had brought to a place in the bar, 
my bearing toward him was in keeping 



92 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

with that idea of the man. But I soon 
found him to be an advocate with great 
ability, a powerful pleader and a man 
well versed in the law. By the way, 
Tom, that case in which you are retained 
at Boston, with the overbearing though 
talented Johnson pitted against you, and 
aided by an able associate — your clients 
will allow you to have senior counsel. 
Say, Tom, how*ll it do to get Stearns? 
It would be worth a fat retainer to see 
him * do up ' the snob who opposes you. 
There would not be any pieces left for 
the undertaker to gather up/' 

'' All right; secure your man for me^ 
if you can/' 

But when solicited, Stearns replies, 
'* Judge, I'd be glad to give your friend 
a lift. But if I have the strength to do 
any more work I shall not have the time. 
Cases at Northampton and Greenfield to 
be heard before the session here closes, 
to say nothing of a few matters to be 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 93 

heard by the county commissioners, both 
in Hampden and Hampshire — these are 
my excuses. Sorry, judge, but I shall 
have to decline, much as I should like to 
meet some of your Boston braves/* 

If other lawyers of his day did not 
dare to take the liberty that was freely 
accorded him, venturesome indeed must 
be the lawyer of to-day, who would pre- 
sume to take anything like the liberty 
that was given him. Imagine a lawyer 
with a reputable citizen under cross- 
examination who should tell him to his 
face, ''You're the champion liar of 
Hampden county! " What fierce magis- 
terial wrath would fl.ame from the face of 
the judge ! And it would be followed by 
rebuke and a fine for contempt of court. 
Yet Mr. Stearns when cross-questioning 
a well-known merchant perpetrated just 
that audacity, and did it unchallenged. 
The case in the trial of which this bold- 
ness was exhibited was brought by 



94 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

some creditors of an insolvent firm, to 
compel the merchant and his partners to 
share the assets of the insolvents pro rata 
with the other creditors. In violation of 
the law and in violation of a written 
agreement of the merchant, which bound 
himself and partners, their firm had 
*' absorbed" all the assets of the bank- 
rupts, leaving the other creditors without 
a cent. Evidence previously adduced 
had shown these facts. And in spite of 
this, the merchant had related a plausible 
story, to justify the action of his firm. 
Mr. Stearns had listened, without express- 
ing by words, tone, or look any dissent, 
and the man was stepping from the stand 
when Mr. Stearns, slowly rising, said in 
tones of composure and still of irony: — 

*' One moment, if you please — just one 
moment. You are Mr. So and So, of the 
firm of So and Thus, I believe? doing 
business on Such and Such street? " 

''Yes, I am," responded the witness. 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 95 

Mr. Stearns then said: '*Y-e-s — and 
the greatest liar in Hampden county — and 
I have evidence to prove it, gentlemen of 
the jury, the champion liar of Hampden 
county! '' 

Then the lawyer waited as if to give 
opposing counsel opportunity to demand 
the proof. But nothing was said; and 
Stearns, looking to the witness resumed: 
'' That will do, Mr. So and So, — you may 
take your seat/' The case was here sub- 
mitted to the jury for consideration and 
they returned a verdict for Mr. Stearns's 
clients. 

Mr. Stearns was at his best when 
speaking in the trials of two will cases 
at Northampton. One of these was the 
case brought by the nephews of the late 
Cooley Dickinson of Hatfield, who were 
not remembered in his will. By that 
testament he bequeathed a handsome 
sum to Northampton for a hospital ; and 
the plaintiffs, who were children of the 



96 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

testator's brother, wanted some of their 
uncle's fortune. The}' thought to prove 
that he was not of '' sound and disposing 
mind." In trying to do this they sought 
to emphasize an idiosyncrasy of his. 
Though he was peculiarly shy of women, 
he had a habit of wearing a hat that so 
closely resembled a woman's hat that it 
was noticed by everybody and was counted 
by all an extreme oddity. The claim of 
the plaintiffs was that this oddity was so 
extreme that it was evidence tending to 
prove him insane. And if this unsound- 
ness of mind was fully established at 
the hearing it would be in place for the 
court to order the will broken so as to 
give them slices of the property. At the 
trial the hat was in the keeping of Dea. 
George W. Hubbard of Hatfield, who 
was interested in the will. Mr. Stearns, 
in making his argument in the case, thus 
'' did up " the hat and its keeper and the 
counsel who were pitted against him : 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 97 

'' At the opening of the court in the 
morning m)- learned friend, Brother Bond, 
has come in, followed by my distinguished 
friend. Judge Hoar, with good Deacon 
Hubbard in the rear bearing a mysterious- 
looking box. In like manner the trio 
have left the court-house at the close of 
the morning session, and in like manner 
they have returned in the afternoon. 
And they have continued in the same due 
order of procession day after day, till we 
naturally began to wonder what that box 
contained. And we came to the conclu- 
sion that there was dynamite in it ; and 
that, at the proper point in these pro- 
ceedings it would explode and good 
Deacon Hubbard would sing as he went 
through the ceiling, ' Sic itur ad astra! ' '' 
The other will case tried at Northamp- 
ton in which Mr. Stearns was counsel and 
was in his usual humor, was that wherein 
one set of grandchildren of a matron, 
who had not been remembered with a 



98 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

bequest from her, while another set had 
been remembered, sought to break the 
will. The mamma and friends of the 
favored set of grandchildren were arrayed 
for the will, and the mamma and friends 
of the other set were arrayed against it 
and had Mr. Bond for counsel, while 
Mr. Stearns represented the will. In 
seeking to prove that the testator was 
not of '* sound and disposing mind" the 
contestants introduced among their wit- 
nesses those who could not remember 
what the old lady said when they called 
on her. In commenting on this evidence, 
Mr. Stearns said : 

'' What — if she had prated like an idiot 
or babbled like a fool they would have 
surely remembered it. They have 
proved too much for their own case. 
The regulation sayings of polite conver- 
sation on the occasion of a call are seldom 
remembered. Why, get my Brother 
Bond right up here, now, and ask him 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 99 

what was said the last time that he put 
on his claw hammer coat and with Mrs. 
Bond went out to make a call, and he 
can*t tell you what was said. They claim, 
too, that the testator's tastes had changed, 
and that, therefore, she was not of sound 
mind, and could not make a will. Why, 
my tastes have changed. So have my 
Brother Bond's tastes changed. When 
I first knew him twenty-five years ago, 
he liked nothing better than to dance all 
night, till four o*clock in the morning. 
And if he didn't like that, I did ! But 
now I had as soon take hold of the handle 
of a pump as to take the hand of a pretty 
maiden and dance down the middle. 
Yes, my tastes have changed. But can't 
I make a will? They claim, too, that 
because the doctor whom my clients se- 
cured to testify as to the testator's sound- 
ness is a homeopathic physician, therefore 
his testimony is to be discredited. Why, 
gentlemen of the jury, right here in 

L.ofC. 



lOO GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

Northampton, where Jonathan Edwards 
preached his rigorous orthodoxy, they 
are beginning to take their religion in 
homeopathic doses. And when my 
Brother Bond and I hunt around in our 
pockets for a stray half-dollar we begin to 
think the people are taking their law in 
homeopathic doses. And shouldn't we 
have a homeopathic doctor to testify in 
this case? " 

Another case heard at Northampton, 
in which Mr. Stearns was counsel and 
was in his characteristic mood of humor, 
was that which arose on freeing the 
wSunderland bridge ; or, rather, it was the 
case of the apportioning of the cost of 
the bridge on the county of Franklin and 
the towns whose inhabitants most used 
the bridge. The franchise of the bridgie 
corporation had expired by limitation. 
The case was heard by a commission duly 
appointed by the courts. And the hear- 
ing was named for Northampton, as that 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 10 1 

would be out of the county in which the 
property in question was located, and it 
was also a place easy of access to all 
parties concerned. The testimony ad- 
duced showed that while each one of 
several towns in the county wanted the 
others to pay most of the expense, and 
so were opposed to the others, they were 
each and all united as opposed to the 
bridge corporation, and demanded that 
the price awarded that corporation should 
be as small as possible. The bridge 
owners were represented by Mr. Stearns, 
who in this position was pitted against 
seven other lawyers. The day for which 
the hearing was booked was preceded, as 
it proved, by the great burglary of the 
*^ old bank." And there were just seven 
cracksmen engaged in that job, a fact of 
which Mr. Stearns made good use in 
showing up the efforts of the seven 
counsel opposed to him in the bridge 
case. After remarking on the fact that 



I02 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

appeared at the hearings on the freeing 
of other bridges over the river, the fact 
that they were noticeably all just about 
to topple down, but somehow had not 
fallen, Mr. Stearns predicted that '*ten 
years from now, when my Brother Aiken 
is going through the country airing his 
fast nag, which is never as fast as he 
wants to have it, and comes to that 
bridge, he will find it strong enough to 
carry him over. And," continued the 
humorist, '' if this bridge franchise wasn't 
worth anything, why didn't the corpora- 
tors go down to the legislature year after, 
and, in the language of good old Dr. 
Doddridge, pray. 

Now let us drop our burdens at your feet 
And bear a song away ? 

Instead of that, they have repaired the 
bridge when it was broken, and have re- 
builded it when it was swept away. And 
just now, when they are ready to make 
something from their property, you seven 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 103 

lawyers come here, and with the rapacity 
of the seven men that robbed the bank 
propose to take our bridge away from us 
without paying for it ! In the first place, 
my learned friend, Judge Conant, repre- 
senting the town of Greenfield, comes 
down here, and in the voice in which 
you might imagine he would sing * Come 
where my love lies dreaming,' says we 
should have about $18, 000 for the bridge . ' ' 
In this passage Mr. Stearns held his 
voice at a falsetto key, and the effect of 
his diatribe on the Franklin county jurist 
was amusing in the extreme. '' And my 
veteran friend. Judge Aiken, representing 
the county of Franklin, comes down here 
with his war paint on, and, brandishing 
his tomahawk, leaps into the ring, and 
not only kills the victim, but scalps the 
corpse, and says we shouldn't have a cent 
for the bridge ! " 

In reviewing the evidence of the defense 
in a suit which he brought against the 



104 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

town of Conway for a citizen of Whately, 
Mr. Stearns was thus facetious: ** And 
now we come to the testimony of Mr. 
Clark Rowland, selectman of Conway. 
He is thrust forward here as the Hume, 
the Gibbon and the Thomas Babington 
Macauley of this case." Of this sally by 
Mr. Stearns, Howland*s friends reminded 
him for a long time afterward. In a 
highway damage suit against the town of 
Hawley, Mr. Stearns, who represented 
the town, was in his happiest vein, and 
said: *' Don't I know all about mountain 
roads in Franklin county? Didn't I 
learn it when I carried the mail from 
Rowe to Florida on the back of a bob- 
tailed gray horse, for fifty cents a week? 
And the hills were so steep that when I 
sat up straight on that horse's back his 
tail would knock off my hat. And I re- 
member what I did with the money. I 
spent it for candy to give to a girl that 
wore a red flannel gown ! Those were 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 105 

happy days ! • ' Mr. Stearns once referred 
to the fact of stopping by the way to dig 
angleworms and to fish from a stream 
abounding in trout, from which he pulled 
speckled beauties weighing half a pound, 
carrying them off with exultation He 
spoke of the feelings of awe that came 
over him when a thunder storm swept 
the mountainous region which he trav- 
ersed. "With the great echoing hills, 
about me, a peal of thunder would seem^ 
to go reverberating around the earth. 
And I thought myself surrounded by the 
illimitable bellowings of eternity! " In 
reference to theological beliefs, Mr 
Stearns was a liberal, yet was tolerant 
of other ideas. He once said, " I have 
my own notions about those things 
but I wouldn't hurt another man's belief."' 
At this time he also said, " When I am 
m church I am reckoned a good listener- 
but It's ten chances to one I am thinking 
about some case in court." 



I06 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

Mr. Stearns is remembered to have 
said in reply to the question of a friend, 
** If I am asked about a law question that 
is new, and I don't know what the law is 
bearing on that point, I try to think what 
the law should be in such a case between 
man and man, and usually that's right." 
When asked to accept a place on the 
bench of the supreme court of the state, 
he said he would appreciate the honor, 
but he didn't think he ''would like to 
behave himself well enough to stay 
there." On being asked to bring a suit 
against a newspaper, he exclaimed, ''O, 
I'd as soon sue the devil as a newspaper !" 
The would-be client instantly responded, 
'' I wouldn't hesitate to sue the devil if I 
had you for counsel." One who over- 
heard this colloquy and who had seen 
much of Mr. Stearns in conversation with 
men in his office and at court, declares, 
' ' That was the only time when I found 
him without a fit reply ready." Another 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. lO/ 

Specimen of the advocate's wit was in the 
following conversation which was heard 
by a brother lawyer. The two attorneys 
were walking along a street of '' Cabot- 
ville " one morning, when a citizen with 
whom they were each on friendly terms 
came up and said, '' Well, seeing two 
lawyers together, I suppose the innocent 
and the virtuous will have to suffer 
to-day." To this Mr. Stearns quickly 
retorted, ''Well — that lets you out, 
doesn't it?" 

One of the memorable trials in which 
Mr. Stearns was counsel was that wherein 
he defended a well-known business man 
whose name had been associated unpleas- 
antly with that of a young woman whom 
he had befriended. The sharp cross- 
questioning of the witnesses of the 
prosecution by Mr. Stearns revealed the 
fact that there had been a system of 
-Spying on the defendant. Men and 
women had secreted themselves in the 



Io8 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

attic of his house, where, through a scuttle 
opening in the ceiling, they watched for 
evidence against him. 

One of the watchers, who testified for 
the prosecution, had been a paper-hanger, 
a fact of which Mr. Stearns made good 
use in cross-questioning him. ''You 
show a great deal of interest in the 
defendant's wife ; are you related to her?" 
questioned the attorney. ''Only as a 
brother-member in the church." "You 
a church member — hey? " And the tone 
in which this question was asked was 
withering in its bitterness. " And what 
were you paid for what you did? " "I 
wouldn't go through it again for three 
times what I received." " Yes, you 
would, too. You would crawl into a 
dung-hill and curl up and stay a month 
for half that amount." This witness had 
testified to making, in a pass-book, mem- 
oranda of what he had seen when he was 
spying. ' ' In what kind of a book were 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 



109 



those memoranda made?" asked Mr. 
Stearns. O, a blank-book, a sort of 
yellow- covered book." This answer the 
counsel carefully led the witness to repeat 
twice, so as to fix it well in the minds of 
the jury that it was a "yellow-covered 
book," which the witness meant. Then 
the lawyer pulled from his own pocket a 
book which had pink covers, and, holding 
it up to the witness's face, showed him 
the entries made therein, and questioned, 
"That's the book, isn't it? and that is 
your handwriting there ? " " Yes — and 
my wife always said I was color-blind." 
^'You color-blind and a paper-hanger, 
ley?" There were other witnesses, 
among those who testified to the locality 
of the wrong-doing with which the de- 
fendant was accused, one locating it in 
one place, another in another, and still 
another elsewhere. This fact of varying 
the location Mr. Stearns ridiculed in 
referring to the crime as "This itinerant, 



no GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

peripatetic, peregrinating adultery.*' 
Sometimes just a word set out the witness 
completely, as for instance this: ''They 
wanted some one to be an expert at 
spying. So they imported this man from 
* Algerie ' — ' Algerie,' Algiers ! always 
the port of pirates ! There he is now " — 
and Mr. Stearns stopped in his remarks 
and pointed his finger directly at the man 
and continued: ''there he is now, that 
cross between a skunk and a hedgehog! 
There he sits licking his chops like a 
wild boar! " This man had secreted 
himself in the attic, and with him there 
vas a woman some of the time. And 
there were others to watch. " But the 
spies,'* said Stearns, "wanted some one 
to engineer matters, some one to have 
charge of the work. And they found 
their man. He needed little urging to 
get him to undertake the job. The 
marvelous meanness of the business cap- 
tivated him at once, and he became 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. Ill 

captain of the scuttle-hole gang of 
peekers, and sneakers and smellers. In 
that town they don't need to be told his 
name/' The argument closed with a 
masterful appeal to the jury for a verdict 
of acquittal, which was rendered. And 
this verdict was the beginning of the end 
of one of the most fiercely waged wars of 
scandal that ever tore a country town. 

A Philadelphia publisher had occasion 
to remember Mr. Stearns's capacity to 
address a jury. . The Philadelphian's 
agents had secured subscribers to a ^* His- 
tory of the Connecticut Valley." The 
book proved unsatisfactory to some of the 
subscribers, and they refused to take the 
copies ordered. The publisher brought 
suit to recover, and the defendants secured 
Mr. Stearns to represent them. In his 
plea to the jury, he entertained them with 
lively antithises of the inconsistencies of 
the work. ^'Why," said he, ^^right here 
in Springfield, John Goodrich, who owns 



112 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

a block and who used to break colts and 
who put cayenne pepper under their tails 
to make them step lively, is remarked 
about extensively and is given a picture in 
the book. But they scarcely allude to Chief 
Justice Chapman and Rev Dr Osgood. 
And over in Westfield, Brother Whitney 
is given a page and they do up Brother 
Gillett in three lines." Mr. Stearns won 
a verdict. 

A characteristic utterance of Mr. Stearns 
was his reply to a newspaper man who in- 
formed him of the election of ex-Gov. W. 
B. Washburn, as a compromise candidate 
for United States senator. This election 
terminated a sharp contest between can- 
didates, the friends of each of whom had 
worked long and hard for the prize, 
which, in this unexpected turn of the 
struggle, went to one for whom no effort 
had been made by himself or his friends. 
The vote of the legislators choosing Gov. 
Washburn was telegraphed all over the 



GEORGE M. STEARNS, 



113 



State and was known at Northampton 
soon after the voting at Boston. Mr. 
Stearns, who had been at work in the 
Hampshire court-house, was on his way 
down Strong avenue toward the old pas- 
senger station of the whilom " River 
road, " to take a train for Chicopee. He was- 
overtaken in the avenue by the newspaper 
man, who remarked, "Well, Mr. Stearns, 
we have a United States senator at last." 
" Yes, yes, " responded the lawyer; "an- 
other instance of Gov Washburn's pleas- 
ant, Sunday-school luck!" 

Representatives of one class of healers 
who would be prohibited practicing, if a 
bill was passed which was pendingbefore 
the legislature, secured Mr. Stearns to 
speak before the committee, against the 
bill. And some of his remarks had the 
vigor of the man. Wishing to impress 
the committee with the fact that the truths 
now accepted in science were once thought 
to be vagaries, and their advocates were 



114 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

denounced as fanatics, he said: ''In his 
day Napoleon Bonaparte was called a 
quack. And last week I read that the 
campaigns of Gen. Grant were devoid of 
military science, and that he would have 
been kicked from the staff of Von Moltke, 
and jeered at Magenta and Sedan. Yet 
what did he do? He controled and con- 
ducted larger armies than his critics ever 
saw, conquered the great rebellion and 
restored the Union. The Puritans were 
thought to be the greatest quacks the 
world ever saw ; and they came from the 
old country because there they were 
denied the privilege of expressing their 
thought, by those who had established 
exclusive standards, by which all persons 
were to be gauged. And when the Puri- 
tans landed here, they became the regu- 
lars, and William Ellery Channing and 
Theodore Parker took their places as 
quacks. Sumner and Garrison and 
Phillips and Beecher were called quacks. 



GEORGE M. STEARNS. 1 15 

Thus it has ever been. Those who were 
dissenters and quacks are really those 
by whom human progress has been borne 
along the centuries and on whose efforts 
have depended the hopes of the world!" 
Counsel opposing Mr. Stearns in a trial 
were sometimes treated to a surprise by 
his admitting the truth of the thrusts 
which they made at him to influence the 
jury to favor their side; and as likely as 
not this surprise would be followed by 
another in the shape of a verdict in favor 
of Mr. Stearns's side of the case, his 
frankness having tended to increase the 
liking of the juors for him. One of the 
lawyers for the defendant in a well- 
remembered -dog case" from Westfield 
had learned that Stearns, who was coun-' 
sel for the plaintiff, had a dread of, and 
a hatred for, a dog, equal, perhaps, to his 
well-known liking for a horse, and used 
the fact in a personal sally at the expense 
of the Chicopee man, saying that had he 



Il6 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

been a member of the family in Noah's 
ark he would have seen to it, at the dis- 
embarking after the flood, that the ele- 
phant had trodden on the dogs and killed 
them, so that the canine race would have 
become extinct. To this retort Stearns 
retorted by admitting the gharge and say- 
ing that had he been one of those making 
that memorable voyage, when the great 
boat had got well under way he would 
have raised a window and thrown the dogs 
out — they would never have been allowed 
to come to Ararat. Stearns won his case. 
The plaintiff in this suit was a boy who 
had been bitten by a dog owned by a 
well-to-do man of Westfield, and the 
mulcting which the defendant received 
at the hands of the jurors, came near 
financially ruining the dog-owner. 

Like every town of its size, Chicopee 
had its prigs who could not abide the 
ways of Mr. Stearns, but most of his 
townsmen had a genuine liking for the 



GEORGE M. STEARNS, 



117 



manliness of the man, and saw in him 
much that they could respect themselves 
for liking. No man lived who could 
exceed Mr. Stearns in his hate of hypoc- 
risy and in his appreciation of genuine 
goodness, and no man could exceed him 
in appreciating ^^the gentleness that 
maketh great." He was one of the 
speakers at the bar memorial meeting 
held in honor of the late Judge Henry 
Vose, who died in 1869, and a young 
lawyer and a young newspaper man have 
remembered and delighted to remember 
through all the succeeding years the best 
thing in the beautiful tribute paid to the 
memory of the departed jurist by Mr. 
Stearns, who in closing said that through- 
out his life — 

. . he bore without abuse 
The grand old name of gentleman." 

The attorney, Robert O. Morris, who has 
remembered this tribute, lived, in Judge 



Il8 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 

Vose's day, close neighbor to him ; and 
he declares that there never was a fitter 
tribute paid to a man than Mr. Stearns 
gave the judge in applying to him this 
sentiment from Tennyson. 

Mr. Stearns, who was a native of 
Stoughton was the son of a Unitarian 
minister who preached at Rowe in the 
years of the son's boyhood. Young 
Stearns attended school for a time at the 
old Shelburne Falls academy. He studied 
law with Judge John Wells of Chicopee, 
and made his home there during his 
professional life of more that forty years. 



SOME HONEST BANKERS. 

FOUR bankers best liked in the Mass- 
achusetts section of the Connecticut 
valley in the last half century were 
Henry S. Lee and Charles Marsh of 
Springfield, Henry Hooker of Westfield, 
and Henry H. Harris of Chicopee. Alike 
in the fact that they were each honest and 
efficient as bankers, they had traits that 
contrasted; or, Mr. Harris had a fondness 
that the others did not have, and they 
had likings for that in which he had no 
special interest. He dearly liked horses. 
And neither of the others had any special 
fondness for them, but, outside of their 
business, were interested in church and 
mission work, in which he did not care to 
engage. Mr Harris liked a '^roader, " 
and he also liked a horse that could acquit 
himself well on the track. He would 



120 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 

also venture a modest amount on the 
result of a *' trial of speed *' in which his 
'' stepper " was to participate. But he 
never risked in a race a dollar that was 
not his own. Mr. Harris had also quite 
a passion for *' swopping hosses. " A 
pow^erful pleader to get the party of the 
second part to ''swop even, " or at least 
to '' split the difference, '' if his argument 
proved unavailing and he did not have 
the " boot money " necessary to ''strike 
the deal, " he did not borrow it from the 
bank, and contented himself with some 
emphatic objurgations on the obduracy 
of the other fellow. 

Henry Howard Harris was a native of 
Springfield, where we was born in 1830. 
He attended such schools as were afforded 
by the village of Springfield 60 years ago, 
and also attended a private school kept by 
Mr. Eaton. After this, he studied at the 
Deerfield academy. Then he was clerk 
in a Springfield crockery store, and later 



SOME HONEST BANKERS. 12 1 

a clerk in the Agawam bank under 
Cashier F. S. Bailey. After a brief 
banking experience at Chicago, which 
city he did not like, Harris returned to 
New England and became teller in the 
Phoenix bank of Hartford, Ct., which 
place had been offered him before his. 
going west. 

It had been Mr. Harris's good fortune- 
to become acquainted with Miss Mary A. 
Church, daughter of Springfield's old- 
time humanitarian and active abolitionist,. 
Dr. Jefferson Church, and inheritor of 
his excellences, including his anti-slavery 
principles. Mr. Harris and Miss Church 
were married in 1851, and in Hartford 
they began their beautiful home life, that 
ended only with his death forty-nine 
years after. He remained teller at Hart- 
ford two years, when he received and 
accepted the offer to become cashier of 
the old Cabot bank of Chicopee. The 
following year, 1 8 54, the Chicopee savings 



122 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 

bank was established, and Mr. Harris was 
made treasurer ; and for several years he 
managed the affairs of both institutions, 
and of the savings bank he continued treas- 
urer for the unprecedented term of forty- 
six years, dying in office in 1900. Mr. 
Harris's only extravagance was a horse. 
Beyond what *' bosses" cost him, his 
personal expenses were very small indeed. 
Both he and Mrs. Harris lived very 
simply. While their home on Gaylord 
street had the comforts of life, it was not 
a showy house ; and they had no ambi- 
tions for luxurious furniture. 

Her friends admired Mrs. Harris for 
her unvarying simplicity in dress ; and 
everybody knew that *' Hen " Harris 
never squandered money for diamonds, 
swell suits, or even '' biled shirts. " His 
intimates declare that even when, as 
mayor, he attended an occasion to which 
society called him, he appeared clad in 
neglige clothes. The bank clerks who 



SOME HONEST BANKERS. I23 

indulge in peculations to get money for 
gay garb in which to gear themselves to 
appear at the social functions of the smart 
sets, could well take lessons in honesty 
of this banker of *' Cabotville. " One of 
his special friends was George M. Stearns. 
And he named the banker executor of his 
will, and requested the court to allow him 
to serve without bonds. 

Springfield's banker, Charles Marsh, 
was a native of Hartford, Ct., and was 
the son of Michael and Catherine Allyn 
Marsh of that city, where Mr. Marsh was 
a merchant and whence the family re- 
moved in 1840 to West Springfield. 
There Mr. Marsh set up again in store- 
keeping. The Marshes, who were 
Methodists, finding no sanctuary of their 
order in the old town, builded, with a 
few others, a small meeting house and 
did much towards supporting services of 
the New Light sort therein. There 
young Marsh was well trained in the 



124 SOME HONEST BANKERS, 

gospel according to Wesley. Neverthe- 
less, influenced by preaching of the 
ancient Rev Dr. W. B. Sprague of the 
Mount Orthodox meeting house, by the 
life of the ancient Rev Dr. Emerson 
Davis of Westfield where he fitted for 
Williams college, and especially by the 
life of that school master. President Mark 
Hopkins, the young man became a 
Congregationalist, and, on locating in 
Springfield joined the South church 
where one of his friends \vas Henry S. 
Lee. The two were beloved by each 
other, by their minister. Rev Dr. Buck- 
ingham, and by everybody else in that 
fold. The mission work of these two 
and of William Kirkham and others, ''on 
the hill,*' in Springfield, a work resulting 
in the flourishing Hope Congregational 
church of to-day, was indeed ''a thing 
of beauty " in the garden of the Lord, 
and will remain '' a joy forever.*' For a 
brief time Mr. Marsh was treasurer of 



SOME HONEST BANKERS. 12$ 

the savings bank of which, now, for 
years, the treasurer has been his brother, 
Lieut. D. J. Marsh. In 1866 Mr. Marsh 
was made cashier of the Pynchon national 
bank, filling the place with credit till '89, 
when, on the death of H. N. Case, he 
was made president. This position he 
ably filled till his death in '91. 

If all the bankers of Springfield were 
asked to name the man gifted with the 
greatest capacity for inspiring bank 
clerks with an ambition to be honest, 
every one would say the honor belonged 
to the late Henry S. Lee. There was 
something about the personality of Mr. 
Lee by which young men were drawn 
towards him and led to the thought that 
his friendship was more to be desired 
than any material good — the thought 
that they had rather have his smnle of 
approval than all the delights of luxuries 
bought with money that they had not 
earned. Every clerk in the great savings 



126 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 

bank managed by him had a wish to keep 
the name of the institution for honorable 
dealing untarnished. And this was due 
largely to the price which they set on 
Mr. Lee's friendship. Each one said to- 
himself, ''He is our friend — this is his 
bank — we can't afford to be crooked here 
— stealings won*t make up for the loss of 
his friendship." Mr. Lee also had the 
capacity for inspiring men with the spirit 
of content in their toil, even if that 
labor was in a lowly sphere. There 
was never but one man in Springfield 
who exceeded Mr. Lee in this respect. 
And that one man was Dr. Holland, the 
author, whose presence, to those who 
understood his fine poetic nature, made 
earth seem heaven. Another poet sang 
that *' to be living is sublime." Holland 
inspired men to believe the sentiment 
really true of life in a world wherein 
they could have him to live with them. 
His presence there invested with impor- 



SOME HONEST BANKERS. 12/ 

tance work in the humblest calling. Mr. 
Lee had something of this capacity, but 
was exceeded in that respect by the 
author. 

Mr. Lee, who was a generous man, 
made his benefactions to people with the 
view of awakening in the recipients the 
ambition to do something for themselves. 
And in his gifts to causes that he favored 
there was no evidence of a wish to gain 
fame by the donations. His death, 
which came in March, 1902, was the 
outcome of a shock which came to him 
while in a lodge room with his Masonic 
brethren. Under the effects of this he 
lingered for about three weeks. The 
same month another banker in the Con- 
necticut valley was suddenly called from 
earth. This was Gen. Julius J. Estey of 
Brattleboro, Vt., the leading citizen of 
his town and known throughout New 
England and the country by a great 
industry of which he was the head, while 



128 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 

for years president of a Brattleboro bank. 
From that town's schools and banks also 
graduated J. W. Stevens, so well esteemed 
at Greenfield, while from a banking ex- 
perience with Mr. Lee came H. K. 
Simons, who, in spite of all the cruel 
slanders once fulminated against him, 
proved himself a better man than his 
calumniators. Another young banker, 
mention of whose correct life is fitting 
here, is Arthur Clark, once and for years 
the polite and faithful teller of a North- 
ampton bank — that he left on account of 
failing health. Another banker of cred- 
itable life is Charles E. Williams, for 
years cashier of the Easthampton bank. 
Henry Hooker, the Westfield banker, 
was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the 
founder of Hartford, Ct., and began his 
banking experience in that capital city. 
Following this, came a brief experience 
at Great Barrington. Then Mr. Hooker 
began at Westfield what proved to be his 



SOME HONEST BANKERS. I2g 

life work. This was as cashier of the old 
Westfield state bank, reorganized in 1865 
tinder the national banking law, a position 
which he filled with credit for thirty 
years. During much of this time the pres- 
ident was Cutler Laflin, the old time 
paper maker of Westfield, and to the two 
is attributable the success of the institu- 
tion they managed. Mr. Hooker offered 
his resignation in August, '95, to take 
effect in October, and he died the next 
year. Under the schooling of Mr. 
Hooker young bankers were trained who 
•gave good accounts of themselves in after 
life. One of them is John G. Root, who 
came to be bank president at Hartford 
and mayor of that city. Another is H. 
H. Thayer, now an efficient official of a 
Minneapolis bank. Still another is Cash- 
ier Loring P. Lane, Mr. Hooker's succes- 
sor at Westfield. All these men had to 
begin at the beginning and work their 
way up. They swept out the banking 



130 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 

rooms, dusted the counters, washed the 
windows and made the fires ; and it is safe 
to say that they earned each promotion 
to which they were advanced. 



i 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH 

THE war was on. The flag of the 
nation had been attacked by armed 
insurgents. In response to the 
call' of the president the loyal people of 
New England, the Middle states and the 
West had sent hundreds of regiments to 
defend that flag. Of these regiments the 
Bay State had furnished her full quota. 
Came again the call for soldiers — a sum- 
mons that all through the loyal states 
met the response, voiced by the song of 
the times, '' We're coming, Father Ab- 
raham, three hundred thousand more.'* 
Those who sang and those who could not 
sing expressed their belief in the senti- 
ment by enlisting in the country's cause. 
From Massachusetts, as from all the loyal 
states, went forth new regiments, besidcvS 
recruits for the ranks of battalions deci- 



132 CO^XERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

mated in battle, or by disease. The four 
western counties that had already fur- 
nished four full regiments, were to fur- 
nish three more — the forty-ninth from 
Berkshire, the fifty-second from Franklin 
and Hampshire, and the forty-sixth from 
Hampden, the latter to have also a dele- 
gation from western Hampshire. 

*' War meetings" were held, to keep 
alive the enthusiasm of the patriotic peo- 
ple, or, rather, to give it vent. Far, 
though many of them had lost their broth- 
ers and sons at the front, their ^earnest- 
ness of loyalty increased rather than 
abated. One thought ruled the hour, and 
filled every heart. Among those to speak 
at these meetings in the territory of the 
forty-sixth was Russell H. Conwell, a 
native of South Worthington, who in his 
* 'teens" had studied at Wesleyan academy, 
Wilbraham, and had taught district school 
in the Beech hill neighborhood of Gran- 
ville and Blandford, and who, scarcely 



CONCERNING THE FORTY^SIXTH. I33 

attained to his majority, eloquently spoke 
in the country's cause, backing up his 
appeals by himself enlisting. 

Another speaker was Rev Joel S. Bing- 
ham, first minister of the newly organ- 
ized Second church of Westfield, brother 
of Brattleboro's long-time high school 
principal, B. F. Bingham, and father of 
Capt Samuel R. Bingham, who, when 
but a sergeant, proved his ability for 
regimental command. Rev Mr. Bing- 
ham appealed to the people of his town on 
behalf of those enlisting, and cultimated 
his earnestness by quoting Dean Swift, 
and declaring '* if you want these men to 
enlist, you must down with the dust! " 

Still another orator at the war meetings 
was Rev George Bowler, minister of the 
Westfield Methodist church, who, at a 
Sunday service of his people, gave an 
eloquent appeal from the text, ''He that 
hath no sword let him sell his garment 
and buy one, " — a discourse that had the 



134 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

desired effect in arousing the congrega- 
tion to do their most for the union cause. 
At one of the meetings addressed by Mr. 
Bowler there were men who thought to 
ask him to practice his preaching, and 
who agreed among themselves to enlist 
if he would. One of their number was 
spokesman ; and arising in his place at 
the close of Mr. Bowler's address, he in- 
formed the speaker of his errand. Accept- 
ing the challenge, Mr. Bowler, amid the 
cheers of the audience, wrote his name on 
an enlistment roll on the spot. And the 
challengers followed his example. This 
happening was the incident that begun 
the movement to make Mr. Bowler col- 
onel of the proposed new regiment. 

One of the companies was thus started ; 
and the ranks were soon full, when, with 
officers elected, the command went to 
Camp Banks, where companies from other 
towns were arriving. One of these, 
Company A from Springfield, Samuel B. 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 35 

Spooner captain, was assigned to the 
right of the regiment. Company C from 
Westfield was given the right center, and 
a second company made up of men from 
that town, Montgomery and Chester, 
with one man from Becket, arrived later. 
From Blandford, Plainfield, South Worth- 
ington, Chester and Huntington, came 
the men of another company, who, at 
Huntington, had chosen young Conwell 
for captain. From Granville, South wick 
and West Springfield came a lot of farmers 
and mechanics who had chosen for cap- 
tain James M. Justin, a soldier sent home 
wounded from a regiment a-field. Lud- 
low, Wilbraham, Agawam and Long- 
meadow sent another company with a 
Methodist preacher for captain and an 
Agawam deacon for first lieutenant. Pal- 
mer and Belchertown were in the game 
with their quota and F. C. Cook for cap- 
tain. So were Monson and Brimfield, 
with men who learned to like the great. 



136 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

honest voice of Captain F. D. Lincoln, as 
it is still remembered by all the survivors 
of the regiment, sounding forth in the 
order, '* Company G, front!*' Then, 
there was Holyoke's Company B, with 
the sturdy Captain Kingsbury, whose 
magisterial looking form and face may 
have been the reasons why he was selected 
by the colonel to preside in regimental 
courts martial, to hear evidence as to the 
fellows caught " running the guard, " or 
under the *'infloounce" of too strong 
** coffee, " — to hear evidence and assign 
fellows to extra duty for their discrepan- 
cies. But what a voice had that Captain 
Grimes of Chicopee's quota, who, when 
he brought his men '' to line, " on the 
parade ground, called out, ** Company D, 
halt !" — with the *^a" as fiat as the ^ 'a" 
in '' mat" or '' tallow! " 

In Captain Spooner's Springfield 
company there were two gentlemanly 
lieutenants, William S. vShurtleff and 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 37 

Lewis A. Tifft. Sliurtleff had a musical 
voice and a fine, soldierly form and 
bearing; and those who knew him best 
were glad to hear of the movement that 
was soon started among the line officers; 
to make him lieutenant colonel of the 
regiment. This done, the second lieu- 
tenant of Company A was made first 
lieutenant, and Sergeant D. J. Marsh 
second lieutenant. It was ** given out " 
early in the time of the rendezvous of 
the forty-sixth at Camp Banks, that the 
major as well as the colonel was to come, 
from Westfield, and was to be Lucius, 
B. Walkley, who had already had military 
experience, A native of Westfield, he 
served in the regular army in the early 
40's, which included the time of the 
Seminole war. And, his term of service 
expiring in 1845, he returned to West- 
field, where he learned the mason's trade 
of W. A. Johnson, afterward a builder of 
church organs. His apprenticeship 



138 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

served, young Walkley began the busi- 
ness of builder and constructed some of 
the most substantial buildings in his 
town. Liking military life, he joined 
the militia of the state and held important 
rank in one of the regiments. In '61 he 
xaised a company for the tenth regiment 
oi Massachusetts volunteers, and with 
his men he went from the camp on 
Hampden park in June. When he was 
superintending the construction of winter 
quarters of the regiment at Camp Bright- 
wood, near Washington, a roof fell upon 
him, inflicting injuries for which he was 
discharged from the service. Returning 
home, he recovered by summer so as to 
be able to reenter the service with the 
forty-sixth, of which he was made major, 
and of which he was the most of a mili- 
tary man. Thus officered, and with the 
soldierly Lieut James G. Smith for 
adjutant, Lieut H. M. Morehouse for 
quartermaster, Rev George W. Gorham 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 39 

for chaplain, and Lieut Thomas Gilfallin 
for assistant surgeon, the forty-sixth 
regiment, after being mustered into 
service September 25th, remained for 
some time at Camp Banks for drill, leav- 
ing that post late in October, to sail from 
Boston for North Carolina. For four 
** storm-rocked days," the battalion, on 
board the old and nasty transports, 
'' Merrimac " and '' Mississippi," was 
tossed on the waves of Boston harbor in 
the midst of a pelting snow storm. And, 
for what? No one knew. The situation 
was becoming unbearable, even by men 
with patience and patriotism. Both field 
and line officers saw that something ought 
to be done. 

Lieutenant Colonel Shurtleff was awake 
to the needs of the command ; and, se- 
curing permission from Colonel Bowler, 
he visited the state-house, to see why the 
delay in the harbor, and especially why 
the unfit quarters of those old transports. 



140 CONXERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

Admitted to the presence of the governor, 
the young officer stated his errand and 
asked for better accommodations for his 
men. But, the young lawyer from 
Springfield and the Methodist minister 
from Westfield, whom he represented, — 
these, with their thousand soil-tillers, 
mechanics, and country store-keepers 
from the farms and hamlets of ''the 
simple country side," — who were these 
twain — this Methodist preacher, if he 
was eloquent, and this young lawyer, if 
he was happily born and well-bred, as 
his bearing gave proof, if he was well 
educated as his speech gave evidence, and 
if, as could have been ascertained, he had 
married a daughter of one of the oldest 
families in the Connecticut valley, — who 
were these officers and their regiment, 
when there were Boston colonels await- 
ing transportation for their regiments ! 
And it was a negative answer that the 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. I4I 

governor returned to young Shurtleff, as 
having stated his mission, he stood, hat 
in hand. 

**Then, your excellency," replied the 
officer, his dark eyes glowing with earn- 
estness and his voice increasing in firm- 
ness, but still keeping the tones of 
respect, * ' if we get no better accommo- 
dations for those men, I shall telegraph 
to Washington for an inspection of those 
ships! " 

As he said this, the officer turned on 
his heels to go. But the * ' war governor '* 
of Massachusetts, though aristocratic, 
was an aristocrat in the highest sense of 
the word. The definition of ^'aristos, — 
the best,*' found its peculiar illustration 
in the make-up and acts of John A. 
Andrew. The interest of the officer in 
his men touched him ; and as Shurtleff 
neared the door, the governor called 
to him saying, ''Colonel, Til do what I 
can for your regiment." 



142 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

Thanking the governor, the officer left 
the state-house — and the next day 
which was Sunday, the steamer '' Nantas- 
kef appeared alongside the *'Merrimac'* 
and the *' Mississippi " and, taking the 
forty-sixth on board, brought them back 
to Boston. They were given quarters 
and a bountiful collation in Faneuil halh 
There, in the ''cradle of liberty" they 
partook of Boston hospitality and filled 
the hours of Sunday evening, and Mon- 
day's early morning hours, as well, with 
patriotic songs. From the repast of the 
evening enough baskets full of fragments 
were left for breakfast and dinner. In 
the afternoon of Monday, seven companies 
went on board the comfortable boat, the 
*' Saxon " and at four o'clock stood out to 
sea, the other three companies going on 
other boats. 

Landing at Morehead, N. C, the regi- 
ment, that had been assigned to the 
eighteenth army corps, proceeded to 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. I43 

Newberne, N. C. and began perfecting 
themselves in drill. The campaigning 
of the regiment included participation by 
eight companies in the Goldsboro expe- 
dition that was marked by battles there 
and at Kingston and Whitehall. Mean- 
while two companies held an important 
picket station at Newport barracks. 
Later, two companies did picket duty at 
Batchelder's creek and participated in an 
important demonstration against '' Little 
Washington," while eight companies, 
in conjunction with the twenty-fifth and 
a delegation of the twenty-seventh held 
Plymouth, N. C, where two forts were 
builded and other intrenchments made 
and a forest felled in hurricane style, to 
protect the place from cavalry raids of 
the enemy from inland and to give a 
better view up the Roanoke river, down 
which it was feared the rebel ram '' Albe- 
marle," then building, w^ould descend. 
Later eight companies of the forty-sixth 



144 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

participated in the dislodgement and 
capture of a considerable force of the 
enemy from Kingston, who were wSta- 
tioned on the railroad at a place called 
** Gum Swamp." There was brave work 
on this expedition. The regiment 
proved their loyalty, when on their way 
north, by volunteering to serve at Mary- 
land heights for a fortnight after their 
term of service had expired — this in the 
attempt to prevent General Lee from 
escaping southward from Gettysburg. 
Most of the regiment arrived at Spring- 
field early in July, though a few came 
later; and the command was mustered 
out of service, on Hampden park, July 
29 — making a term of ten months since 
the date of muster in. And many of the 
regiment had been in camp for a month 
before the muster in — which gave them 
a term of eleven months. 

The history of the forty-sixth since the 
home coming has been such as to reflect 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. I45 

credit on the officers and men of the 
command, and their achievements in 
some of the callings of life have been 
those to which they and their friends can 
revert with satisfaction. A considerable 
number of the veterans have served their 
respective towns in official capacity and 
have made good records for their districts 
in the legislature. William R. Sessions, 
who was in Company I, did well as state 
senator, and as secretary of the state 
board of agriculture. Myron Barton and 
Alvertus Morse of Belchertown, and of 
Company H, were each, in turn, represen- 
tatives and town officials, while Stephen 
Hayward of Company F, had a legis- 
lative experience. Capt James M. Justin 
was for several years a valued town 
official of West Springfield, and Captain 
Campbell of Westfield was several times 
in the legislature from his district. 
Thomas Little of that town has supple- 
mented his soldier life by a creditable 



146 CONXERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

business career. So, too, did John C- 
Schmidt, of Mr. Little's own Company K, 
while Frank Snow, a Westfield member 
of the forty-sixth, has served faithfully 
as adjutant of the local Grand Army post. 
Cassius H. Darling of Company K did 
well after the war as a railroad man, as 
Y. M. C. A. secretary and as a Methodist 
minister ; Newcomb Dyer, who was from 
Plainfield, became a large farmer in 
Missouri; C. B. Hayden contented him- 
self with farming on the Blandford hills; 
James Starkweather is at Westfield. 
His comrade Dwight Prentice has acres 
in Worthington and E. L. Higgins 
near Huntington. Drummer Moody is 
a machinist at Hartford. W. H. 
Aldrich is a tradesman at Westfield. 
W. D. Hayden became officer in a muni- 
cipal court ; the late Alfred Kilbourne 
was a town official at Worthington ; Ezra 
M. Brackett has been for years a merchant's 
trusted salesman; Melzar H. Mossman 



CONCERNINCx THE FORTY-SIXTH. I47 

has proved that he has talent to design 
statues of soldiers; the late Eleazar 
Bryant was a skilled cabinet maker ; L. Z. 
Cutler and E. C. Rogers are Springfield 
business men and the late Andrew J. 
Wright, by faithfulness, worked his way 
from book-keeper in the office of the 
Springfield fire and marine insurance 
company to be president of the company. 
R. B. Currier, A. N. Mayo and N. W. 
Fisk other successful Springfield business 
men served in the forty-sixth. Lieutenant 
Julius M. Lyon of Company G, who served 
a second term in the army, was, there- 
after, a town official at Wales, and a 
member of the legislature. Of the 
company in which was Lyon's second 
term the leader was his townsman, Capt 
George M. Stewart, who, after the war 
was a successful lawyer at St. Louis for 
years — until failing health compelled 
him to give up his practice and return to 
the East. Captain Stewart exhibited 



148 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

both as lieutenant and as captain the 
qualities of the real soldier. One of 
the brightest lawyers in Connecticut, 
Mr. Arthur P. Eggleston of Hartford, 
who honors the position of state attorney, 
was a member of Company I; and N. 
S. Cooley, a lieutenant in Company 
I, has long filled with efiiciency a position 
with a manufacturing company at Wind- 
sor Locks. He was on the signal corps 
in the army. The correct man of details 
vSergeant-major Field has long had a 
position with a Hartford insurance com- 
pany. He reenlisted from the forty-sixth 
into the artillery service and his place 
in the old regiment was filled by Andrew 
S. Bryant, who won a medal from con- 
gress for bravery, and who, since the 
war, has been an honest cashier of a 
railroad. One of the best ^soldiers of the 
regiment was William S. Loomis, who, in 
the army earned a lieutenantcy, and who 
since the war has been town clerk of 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 49 

Holyoke, a successful journalist and a 
capable manager of the Holyoke electric 
road with its lofty attraction of Mount 
Tom. Springfield's longtime and efficient 
city clerk, Elijah A. Newell, was in the 
forty-sixth. Harvey Porter, who went 
to war from Huntington hill, has written 
text books in foreign tongues and has 
been a professor in a missionary college. 
Oliver Walker, who was of Company H 
and from Belchertown, has been a long 
time in business at Northampton. 

One of the best soldiers of the forty- 
sixth was Embury P. Clark, who, since 
the war, served Holyoke as water regis- 
trar and as school committee and who 
has abundantly proved his fitness for the 
position of sheriff of Hampden county. 
He has been in the state militia continu- 
ously since the war and has filled with 
credit nearly every place in the Second 
Massachusetts, from that of sergeant to 
the colonelcy of the regiment. And he 



150 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

was colonel of the Second Massachusetts 
volunteers that made a creditable record 
in the Cuban campaign. Lieut D. J. 
Marsh, who had a staff appointment in 
the army, has for years been a faithful 
treasurer of a savings bank. The singer 
Edward Morris, who is also author of 
the humorous *'Philetus Ash" letters, 
was in the forty-sixth. So was every- 
body's friend Thomas F. Cordis of 
Longmeadow and F. S. Graves a faithful 
bookkeeper. Lieut J. G. Noble is 
respected as a business man at Westfield, 
and the late Joseph Sheldon filled every 
position of the Huntington Grand Army 
post from janitor to commander. 

Colonel Bowler, whom severe illness 
compelled to resign early in his cam- 
paigning, and whose place was filled by 
the promotion of Lieutenant Colonel 
Shurtleff, finally recovered so as to resume 
preaching, in which he exhibited his old 
time eloquence. He was pastor at Fall 
River; also at Nashua, N. H. There 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 151 

liis activity told on him and he died in '69. 
Lieut Col Walkley, who had been in the 
regular army, served there to the warm 
approval of an officer who, afterwards, 
attained a high place in the volunteer 
service and who would have been glad to 
have helped his former comrade to the 
position he deserved. But this good 
soldier was as modest as he was brave 
and sought not the place for which his 
talents fitted him. So thought officers 
and men of the forty-sixth. And com- 
porting with the estimate of his comrades- 
in-arms is the thought of his fellow-citi- 
zens, that, had he been as self-assertive as 
was warranted by his talent for the pro- 
fession of arms, he who contented him- 
self to wear the insignia of the silver leaf 
would have w^on the stars of military 
authority ; and the people that are 
proud of General William Shepard of 
Revolutionary fame, would have had the 
opportunity to write by his name that of 



152 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

a hero of equal valor and greater military 
talent, Lucius B. Walkley, major-general 
commanding in the armies of the Union 
in the war of the second revolution. 

Soon after returning from the war Col 
W. S. Shurtleff was appointed judge of 
the Hampden probate court. And with 
what great efficiency he filled the place 
members of the bar and patrons of the 
court gave abundant testimony through 
all his career. He died suddenly at his 
home in Longmeadow, in 1896. Judge 
Shurtleff was a man of fine culture, and 
his addresses on civic occasions and at 
gatherings of veterans of the war had 
passages of real eloquence. Among his 
literary friends were E. C. Stedman, R. H. 
Stoddard and A. P. Burbank. He was a 
Mason of high degree. During his 
judicial career the faithful register of 
the court was his comrade. Major S. B. 
Spooner, who, elected by all political 
parties, still fills the position.. 



CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 53 

The success of Rev Dr. Russell H. 
Conwell in organizing the great Baptist 
church in Philadelphia of which he has- 
been head minister for years is proof 
that the boy captain of the forty-sixth 
had executive ability,, while his eloquence 
has made him in demand to lecture again 
and again all over the country, from his 
native New England to the Mississippi 
valley and to the Pacific coast. 

Adjutant Smith, Quartermaster More- 
house, Captains Kingsbury, Lincoln, 
Tifft, Cook and Grimes, Lieutenants 
DeWitt, Spear, Fay, Plummer, Turner, 
Wells and others of the line and staff 
officers have died since returning home. 
Lieutenant Gilfallin of the staff still 
lives, so does Captain Avery, the veteran 
of the line. To those who knew the 
soldierly Adjutant Smith it seemed in- 
deed a cruel fate that he should be shock- 
ingly mangled in a railroad accident and 
suddenly torn from earth. 



J 54 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 

Creditable in the army were the lives of 
most of the oflficers of the forty-sixth, and 
creditable, too, have been their records 
since then, and, in some instances, re- 
markable. Creditable, too, in and out of 
the army the lives of most of the men 
whom they led ; and if, among officers or 
men were, those who varied from right 
:standards, let not their names be men- 
tioned to mar the record. Equal to their 
leaders in mental make-up, personal 
bravery and other elements of worth were 
many of the men in the ranks and qualified 
to take the places of those leaders. Thus 
it was all through the army — the leader 
of every regiment had in his command 
men fitted to take his place, and he and 
they were warring to protect the life of a 
country wherein the rights of the humblest 
were sacred to the highest. 



IN ABOLITION TIMES. 

THERE were brave men and women 
among the old time abolitionists — 
those who did what they could to 
aid fugitive wslaves on their way towards 
the north and freedom — those who ren- 
dered this aid when the laws allowed a 
slave owner to capture his slaves in 
whatever free state of the Union he found 
them and, proving before a magistrate 
there, his ownership of the *' property*' 
in question, take them back to servitude 
in the state from which they had escaped. 
And when, later, congress passed the 
** fugitive slave law " itself, a law which 
not only gave the slave owner the right 
to capture the runaways wherever they 
were to be found, but made it the duty 
of United States marshals and their 
deputies to watch for runaway slaves, 



156 IN ABOLITION TIMES. 

apprehend them and take them before 
the judge of a United States court to 
remand back to slavery and also made it 
a crime for any one to aid fugitive slaves 
on their journey — then, with heightening 
courage, these abolitionists rose to meet 
the situation. And, law-abiding citizens 
though they all were, they declared, 
'' Now let us do our duty to our fellow 
men, even in defiance of the law of the 
land. Conscience antedates congress, 
the sermon on the mount is older than 
the fugitive slave law, the teachings of 
Jesus are superior even to those of any 
judge whose rulings contravene them.'* 
And when Chief Justice Roger B. Taney 
issued his infamous findings, including 
the utterance that ' * a black man has na 
rights that a white man is bound to 
respect," intenser grew the earnestness 
of the abolitionists and they redoubled 
their efforts to aid the fugitives. And 
even one of the marshals charged with 



IN ABOLITION TIMES. 1^7 

the business of arresting runaway slaves 
purposely failed to do his duty, and that, 
too, when he knew he was thus aiding 
the fugitives. This officer was Isaac O. 
Barnes, marshal for the district of Massa- 
chusetts. Notified that runaways of 
such and such size and age and so and so 
clad, had escaped and probably would try 
to cross his territory on their way north, 
he immediately sought out some of the 
Springfield abolitionists and told them of 
the information received, saying, **If I 
find those fellows hanging about here I 
shall have to arrest them." With a 
knowing smile in response to Dr. Church 
or Rufus Elmer, who said, '*Yes, Mr. 
Barnes, I see — of course you'll have to do 
your duty," the marshal left, to look after 
matters elsewhere in his district, well 
knowing the abolitionists would not 
inform on him. And those darkies, well 
fed and being furnished a change of garb 
to contradict the description given of 
them, were sent on north. 



158 IN ABOLITION TIMES. 

What brave people President and Mrs. 
Coffin must have been who began even 
down in North Carolina their work of 
operating the ** underground railroad*' 
for runaway slaves. Later they moved 
farther north and there increased their 
activities in the cause. And what daring 
men and women there were in the old 
Vine street Congregationalist church of 
Cincinnati. There, as soon as ever the 
fugitives had ''crossed the tide" from 
Kentucky, they were hid in a secret 
chamber, back of the church organ — hid 
there in the very sanctuary of the Lord ! 
and, at night time, by some unseen and 
daring angels of deliverance they were 
spirited across country to Canada and 
liberty. 

Some of the fugitives took a more 
westerly route northward, and, aided by 
Hurds and Lovejoys and their associates, 
went on their way. Allan Pinkerton, 
the famous detective, gave the operators 



IN ABOLITION TIMES. I 59 

of the underground railroad hints how to 
evade the fugitive slave law, which he 
regarded as iniquitous. Fugitives also 
took easterly routes towards the north 
and, aided by such men as Isaac T. Hopper 
of the Quaker sort of haters of slavery, 
found themselves in New York, where, 
perhaps, others were landed by some 
bluff Yankee '*cap'n," who, when his 
craft of the coasting trade was searched 
for stow-away ** niggers'' hoodwinked 
the officers of the law. By one means or 
another a great many of these escaping 
ebons found themselves in Gotham and 
thence traveled by the '* shore line" to 
New Haven. Thence by two diverging 
routes they went onward. One route ran 
through Westfield, where Hulls were 
active abolitionists, the other went 
through Springfield and thence through 
Chicopee street, whence the titanic Titus 
Chapin in his farm wagon carried the 
fugitives '* bright and early" on their 



l6o IN ABOLITION TIMES. 

way towards Northampton, where con- 
verged the routes that diverged at New 
Haven. 

One of the most active of the abolition- 
ists of his time was J. P. Williston of 
Northampton, whose barn, in King street 
that was then an aristocratic street of 
*'the fine old town," harbored many of 
the fugitives from slavery. From his 
table they were fed and he gave them 
money to further aid them on their jour- 
ney. The pro-slavery people and the 
** rum element " — for Mr. Williston was 
a temperance man — joined hands against 
him and burned his barn. But, nothing 
daunted, he kept on with his efforts for 
temperance and for the anti-slavery cause. 
As additional proof of his wish to aid the 
so called ''inferior race," he took a 
colored boy to live in his house and eat 
from his table. He gave him a chance 
to learn the printer's trade, so as to be 
self supporting. This protege had musi- 



IN ABOLITION TIMES. l6l 

cal talent, and Mr. Williston, who was a 
leading member of the Old church of 
Northampton, insisted that he be allowed 
to sing in the choir — and he was. He 
still lives in Pennsylvania, where he has 
given a good account of himself. 

Aided by Mr. Williston and other 
abolitionists in Massachusetts and by men 
of like faith and works in southern Ver- 
mont, the fugitives reached Mount Holly, 
where Bjxbys and others aided them. 
Further north there were other stations 
of the underground road. And as the 
farers neared Canada, they naturally 
grew more hopeful. But if they appeared 
too much elated the agents of the under- 
ground road warned them not to be off 
their guard, for they were not yet out of 
danger. They were reminded that even 
if they were within sight of the Canadian 
border, they were still liable to arrest by 
national officers, and that there were even 
in northern Vermont magistrates who 



l62 IN ABOLITION TIMES. 

would, when besought by slave hunters, 
issue papers of rendition, armed with 
which the hunters could take them back 
to their old servitude. Then to reinspire 
the pilgrims with courage the station 
keepers told them the story of the Ver- 
mont magistrate, who, when a slave 
hunter sought for papers of rendition for 
a negro whom he brought before his 
honor, replied: ''No, sir — you cannot 
have this man to take back to slavery, 
unless you present a bill of sale from 
God Almighty!" Heartened by the 
assurance that such sentiments actuated 
some of the justices of Vermont, the 
fugitives fared on and finally crossed the 
border into their long-sought Canaan of 
Canada ! 



INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 

MANY of the industries that were 
carried on in New England 
seventy-five years ago and even 
fifty years ago, have vanished. And in 
no section is this fact more noticeable 
than in western Massachusetts and vicin- 
ity. Take, for instance, the wagon 
making once done by ten concerns at 
Belchertown — they are all gone. And 
with them have faded like industries 
fiom Clark street, West Springfield, the 
^^ Crooked Lane" nook of Suffield, Ct., 
and from many other localities. Rakes 
are no longer made by the Brogasof Otis, 
nor axes by the Hannums of Huntington 
that was Chester village, nor planes by 
that typical New Englander Deacon 
Melvin Copeland of '*the village." Nor 
is home made cloth fulled at '' Norridge 



164 INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 

bridge/' nor in half a hundred other 
places where once it was, nor scythes 
made by the Blanchards that named 
'' Blanchardville " east of Palmer depot, 
nor Venetian blinds by Mr. Adams or 
anybody else at Becket centre that was, 
nor wooden combs by ** Uncle *' Timothy 
Fay or others at Chester Factories or 
elsewhere, nor bedsteads and coffins by 
William Fay or others at ' ' the Factories. " 
In some places several industries have 
vanished. Five have gone of the half 
dozen that once thrived in the ' ' Beaver 
Dam" district of Blandford, leaving but 
one of the original six. To make up in 
part for the loss, one new industry has 
come in. One of the industries that went 
was bedstead making, another making 
wooden bowls, another making '■' straw- 
board " wrapping paper, another tanning 
and yet another making woolen cloth. A 
tannery at Blandford centre went down ; 
so did one at Russell, one at Otis and one 



INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 165 

at Sandisfield. The '' Littleville " neio-h- 
borhood of Chester had a tannery once ; 
and one at ^nhe Factories " that remained 
after many others had died down, finally 
went out of business. Strange as it may 
now seem, there was once a tannery over 
in one of the hollows of Middlefield — for 
Middlefield has its hollows as well as its 
hills. This decadence of the tanneries 
has extended throughout New England. 
There was once a tannery right in the 
village of Hinsdale, N. H., where now 
there is none. '' Uncle " Parley Starr, 
who was a bank president at Brattleboro, 
Vt., was previously a tanner in a neigh- 
boring town. Readsboro, Vt., had its 
tannery, so did Wilmington farther up 
the Deerfield valley. And of course 
Maine had its tanneries, hundreds of 
them. It was a mile from the village of 
Winchester, N. H., where the Jewells 
did tanning — the Jewells some of whom 
came to prominence in political life, as 



l66 INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 

also did a Massachusetts tanner. This 
was Gov William Claflin. The promi- 
nence of these men was along in the 
years when one who had done tanning 
with his father and brother at Galena, 
111., engaged in tanning enterprises on a 
larger scale and of a different sort at Fort 
Donelson, Vicksburg, Shiloh, the Wilder- 
ness and Appomattox, enterprises that 
gave him national prominence and made 
the name of Grant known the world over. 
There was no tannery in New England 
that did a more thriving business nor one 
that was a better industry for the place 
where located than the one carried on for 
years, at Becket, by Gov William Claflin 
of Boston and his partner J. W. Wheeler, 
who lived at Becket and had immediate 
oversight of the works, which included, 
besides the tannery proper, a currier 
shop. The concern employed good help 
whom they gave steady employment at 
good wages; and for those without 



INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 167 

families of their own, they furnished a 
home that was well managed by Mr. and 
Mrs. Taylor, people who, besides caring 
for the tanners, added to their own lives 
that significance coming from the genuine 
neighborliness that was appreciated by the 
best of the villagers. One of the tanners 
was a German, still well remembered at 
Becket for his talent for invention. This 
was *' Uncle" John Mueller, who occu- 
pied the house since kept as a summer 
inn. And, to quote from the German, 
himself when telling where he did his 
studying — *' in that front chamber there 
I tinks an' tinks! '* And for the result 
of his '' tinking," a process for tanning, 
he received seven thousand dollars. The 
Claflin and Wheeler tanning at Becket 
and one which they subsequently ran in 
York state have followed in the way of 
other enterprises of the kind and died 
out. And industries of how many other 
sorts were carried on in New England, in 



l68 INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 

the old days, that have gone. How many 
shops have ceased running wherein once 
chair stuff was turned, or whip butts, or 
hoe handles, scythe snaths, lather boxes, 
or sleigh thills, or wagon felloes. How 
many hat shops have stopped business. 
A few of those who carried on some of 
these industries survive and are elsewhere 
engaged in other business, like for in- 
stance, the veteran Mr. Hitchcock, once 
a wagon maker at Belchertown but in 
later years in mercantile life at Ware. 
The Belcher and Taylor plow and 
tedder business has long aided Chicopee 
Falls. So has the Maynard hoe business 
helped Northampton. The Prentisses 
of Holyoke, who long ago established a 
wire drawing enterprise there, have well 
proved the possibility of conducting 
business so as to give good workmen 
good wages. How to do this the 
late C. J. Amidon of Hinsdale, N. H. 
proved, as have the Hailes of the same 



i 



INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 169 

place, and the Robertsons, father and 
sons, while as much is true of the Fisk 
paper making industry. If the survey 
be extended ^* down east,'^ there could be 
found those who have done their best to 
maintain an industry '' for the benefit of 
the town " and for the help employed. 
To specify, one of these was W. C. 
Fernald, for years a manufacturer at 
Wilton, Me., and there were many others 
with similar ambitions. Some of the old 
industries have remained. One of these, 
the manufacturing, formerly conducted by 
L. B. Williams at Chester village, re- 
moved to Northampton and increased to 
greater proportions, is well managed there 
by the kindred of the former proprietor. 
The drum making at Granville helps the 
place ; so does the organ making done at 
Brattleboro, Vt. help its town. 

There are industries in Massachusetts 
and elsewhere in New England that, 
started years ago, have not died out and 



I/O INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 

have not been removed to other localities, 
but " still stand strong" and, full of their 
former vigor, are flourishing * ' on the 
very spot of their origin/' One of the 
most notable of these is that of the paper- 
making begun at Dalton in 1800 by Zenas 
Crane, and by him and his descendants 
carried on there throughout the century. 
It is said that one of the facts that influ- 
enced this pioneer paper-maker to locate 
his industry where he did was the purity 
of the water to be had there for washing 
the stock to be used in making paper. 
But, important as that fact was, essential 
as pure water is for washing stock for 
fine paper, there has been something 
more conducive to the success of the 
Dalton enterprise, — more conducive than 
that or than improved machinery which 
has been from time to time adopted or 
than a ready market, and that something 
has been the uniform loyalty of the 
workmen employed to the interests of 



INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. I/I 

the employers — a loyalty possible only 
under treatment marked by justice and 
considerateness. Some of the paper 
makers contemporaneous with the second 
generation of Cranes and who were just 
in their treatment of their help were the 
Smiths of Lee, the Southworths, the 
Jessups and the Laflins. Some of the 
descendants of these are the successors of 
their ancestors in business and carry out 
their ideas in the conduct thereof. 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

WHAT men there were in the '' old 
guard " of the republicans of 
western Massachusetts. They 
were men conscious that the party, organ- 
ized for objects making for the best 
interests of the country at large and for 
the promotion of that which was for the 
welfare of humanity the world over, had 
not drifted from the course in which the 
career was begun. Among them were 
those to whom certain features of the 
party creed seemed more important than 
they did to others. To some the anti- 
slavery sentiment that had found its 
high culmination in the emancipation of 
the slaves was still the all important 
doctrine and whatever made for the 
advancement of the freedmen was the 
chief mission of party. To others the 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1/3 

great work of the party was maintaining 
a tariff on imported goods that would 
protect home industries. And there were 
other questions to which greater or less 
interest was attached, according to the 
point of view taken by different ones of 
these republicans. But, while cherishing 
each their own ideas of the questions 
before the country, the old guard were, 
with few exceptions, loyal to the party. 
There were eloquent men among them. 
One of these was Judge James T. Robin- 
son of the Berkshire probate court, who, 
on the platform and in his newspaper, 
said things fervently and gracefully for 
the cause of the republicans. Another 
was Westfield's man of classic speech, 
Edward B. Gillett. And the party man- 
agers of the region — what men they 
were. One of these was Edward R. 
Tinker of North Adams, whose white 
hat, and hair that was white many years 
ago, gave him the look of a veteran even 



174 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

then, while his frank heartiness of greet- 
ing drew men to him, and they were 
somehow led to think him gifted with 
sagacity for political management. This 
idea they came to find to be true. Ta 
their delight was it true if they were on 
his side of the game, and to their sorrow, 
if they were opposed. One of Mr. 
Tinker's contemporaries was Sylvander 
Johnson, the man whose manner of 
address was in contrast to that of his 
associate. Mr. Johnson always spoke in 
a voice almost down to a whisper, as if he 
was making a special confidant of the one 
with whom he was conversing. The 
*' soldier element" among the North 
Adams coterie of the old guard was 
represented by Capt W. F. Darby, once 
postmaster, and by others. The temper- 
ance element and church interest were 
recognized, for wasn't Edwin Rogers 
postmaster; and, later along, the Metho- 
dist element was cared for in the selection 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 75 

of the excellent Ashley B. Wright for 
councilor and then for congressman. 
Loyal to the party in the state and the 
country, Mr. Tinker was loyal to Berk- 
shire, too ; and when that county, that had 
its United States senator and other officials , 
was in the congressional district with 
Hampden that didn't have one man in 
office, Mr. Tinker planned for further 
conquests, and, with his Berkshire cohorts 
well trained *'came down to Hampden 
county to claim new honors and to win 
them." And at the convention they 
named Francis Rockwell of Berkshire, 
who was sent to congress again and again. 
And for some of the time, Pittsfield — 
Berkshire's Pittsfield — had the United 
States senator, the congressman, the 
district attorney and the attorney general 
and Hampden county didn't have a man I 
Speaking of Pittsfield, reminds one of that 
old timer of the republicans, Charles N. 
Emerson. The story is told that once. 



176 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

when a delegate to the state convention 
at Worcester, he rose to address the 
assembly, the chairman failing to recog- 
nize him, asked, **Will the gentleman 
give his name that the chair may announce 
it to the delegates? " And he responded, 
''Mr. Emerson, sir, from the grand old 
hills of Berkshire/* There was some- 
thing in the circumstances of the case that 
made the response especially relished ; 
and it was long treasured to flavor remi- 
niscences of scenes in Mechanics* hall. 
Speaking of Berkshire in the old days, 
who could omit the name of Gen W. C. 
Plunkett of Adams, once lieutenant gov- 
ernor — General Plunkett, who by his 
character gave solidarity to the party. 
And if Captain Darby represented the 
soldier element of the party at North 
Adams, that element was represented 
by Lieut Col Joseph Tucker of Pittsfield 
and Captain Weston of Dalton, each, in 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 177 

turn, lieutenant governor; and Pittsfield 
had also her '' Cap " Weller and '' Cap '* 
Smith. 

No list of old time Berkshire republi- 
cans would be complete that did not 
include the name of Prentice Chaffee 
Baird of Lee, once state senator and for 
along time a *' power" with the party 
managers. ' ' Print " was a son of Kendall 
Baird, the long time keeper of the stage 
tavern at West Becket, known as 
**Baird's." Who that knew this inn- 
keeper will forget his long whiskers and 
his bluff heartiness of manner. A politi- 
cian who had some influence was 
** Print's" cousin, James C. Chaffee, once 
postmaster of Lee. Down farther south 
there was John M. Seeley of Housatonic, 
'' Uncle Mark," whom the boys all liked 
and who was representative and senator. 
And Parley A. Russell and A. L. Hubbell 
of Great Barrington had to be consulted, 
to have things go right. So did the 



178 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

Littles of Sheffield, and Henry Burch, 
who was a long time town clerk there 
and a member of the legislature. Out 
at Egremont there was Farmer Rowley 
with whom the politicians had to confer; 
and on the heights of Mount Washington 
Neighbor Whitbeck had to be '*seen," 
even if his town didn't have a post office 
and was at one time minus a meeting 
house. And at Lenox Thomas Post had 
a following. 

Too wise to be at odds with those with 
whom he was called to operate, Mr. 
Tinker, if he was loyal to Berkshire, kept 
on good terms with the Hampden county 
magnates and with those in Hampshire 
as well. In fact, he was known all 
through the state and prized for his 
sagacity. And it is no doubt true that 
in his day he influenced votes for his 
friend Mr. Dawes not only in the old 
congressional district of Berkshire and 
Hampden, but votes for him* when he 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 79 

was before the legislature of the state 
as candidate for the senate. But to say, 
as some have done, that Mr. Dawes owed 
his long tenure in office solely to this fact 
would be unjust to the statesman, whose 
tireless industry in the national legislature 
was alone enough to earn him a life lease 
of a place there. 

Among those in Hampden county with 
whom Mr. Tinker always conferred were 
included, of course, Thomas Kniel of 
Westfield and often H. J. Bush of that 
town and E. B. Smith, an ex-soldier, W. 
H. Foote and L. F. Thayer, while even 
in Southwick there was Edwin Gilbert 
and R. W. Kellogg. And why forget 
Nelson D. Parks of Russell and W. M. 
Lewis of Blandford? At Springfield Mr. 
Tinker and Henry Alexander had long 
conferences in **Alek's" bank; and to 
men who remember those days it needs 
not to be said that * *slates" made up by the 
two were generally '* carried in conven- 



l80 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

tion." Of course the two managers 
were sagacious enough to recognize all 
the '' elements/' The urbane Albert D. 
Briggs, when mayor and when ex-mayor, 
was sure to be on the list of delegates 
and with him his friend, the young Mr. 
F. H. Harris, also likely as not the 
gallant Major Spooner just home from 
the wars, or Gen Horace C. Lee. E. H. 
Patch represented the ''horse fanciers'* 
and the South church as well and L. C. 
Smith the horse fanciers and the Metho- 
dist church, which latter order w^ere 
further represented by Henry W. Hallett 
and Lewis H. Taylor. Likely enough 
John Anderson represented the North 
church while C. L. Covill was also a 
delegate. Palmer was not forgotten, for 
Gordon M. Fisk was consulted; nor was 
Monson left out, for the managers con- 
ferred with W. N. Flint and perhaps a 
Norcross, a Holmes, a Lyon or that 
Yankee squire, George H. Newton. 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. l8l 

The slate for Hampshire county was 
never completed without a good deal of 
thought. For the county had besides 
Gen Luke Lyman, who was a power in 
his day, such dignified officials as Sheriff 
Longley, the veteran sheriff of the whole 
country, and Esquire Elisha H. Brewster, 
senator and county commissioner and 
councilor, men looking always for the 
best interests of the people. And then, 
before the days of the prominence of 
Alvan Barrus of Goshen there were those 
two Cummington men, Lysander J. 
Orcutt and Richmond Kingman of Cum- 
mington, each men of influence, while 
such men as Nelson Campbell of Plain- 
field were worth consulting. And, again, 
over at Ware — Ware always a smart 
town — there was the unpretentious 
but influential Charles A. Stevens the 
manufacturer, to say nothing of Granby's 
S. M. Cook. And several Belchertown 
men were of some importance beyond 



l82 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

the fact that they were of the town of the 
fairs where politicians were always in 
attendance to greet the dear people and 
of course to show their interest in agri- 
culture, which the Father of his country 
so felicitously termed '' the most ancient, 
the most useful and the most honorable 
employment of man." And other fairs 
were visited by the old timers of the 
republicans. They were at the ''Hill- 
side " show at Cummington, and the one 
at Charlemont. Some of them climbed 
the heights of Middlefield and talked 
with descendants of the Macks, the Roots, 
the Smiths and the Churches. Others 
went up to Blandford and there greeted 
descendants of the Gibbses, Knoxes, 
Boises, Lloyds, Nyes, Burdicks, Herricks 
and Lewises; and, of course the Berkshire 
fair at Pittsfield, oldest fair in Massachu- 
setts, was visited. To greet the incomers 
from other towns Ensign H. Kellogg of 
Pittsfield was on hand. He always could 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 183 

fitly officiate to introduce gentlemen to 
the soil tillers. There has always been 
attached to the ancient Berkshire agricul- 
tural society a good deal of dignity. 
Nevertheless, '* fair week'* brought to 
Pittsfield some picturesqueness. One 
feature of this sort was the impromptu 
meeting of **hoss swoppers" dickerers 
in '*waggins," whips and ''dorgs/* a meet- 
ing held in an open lot near the old 
town hall. And if this meeting fell on 
a sunny day many were the on-lookers — 
among them the urbane Sheriff Root 
**just to preserve order " and Mr. Kellogg, 
whom the traders liked to see ; while, to 
heighten the cheeriness of the occasion, 
beamed the rosy face of the still well 
remembered **Gen'' Foster of Cheshire, 
who knew more about the '' whipping in'* 
business of active politics than any other 
man in a dozen towns, if not the whole 
country through. And the ** general's " 
field was not only at fairs and the meet- 



184 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

ings of the ''hoss men/' but he was 
always in demand at caucuses and was 
frequently a member of the ' ' third 
house '' of the Massachusetts legislature. 
There were two of the early republicans 
of western Hampshire county who held 
the office of lieutenant governor. One of 
these was Joel Hayden, who founded the 
village of Haydenville and established 
the principal industry of the place. In 
this there were skilled workmen, one of 
whom was the fine old German citizen 
Jacob Hills, whose talent was well proven 
in an invention for making brass goods, 
one that was so valuable that business 
men tried to rob him of it. But he had 
prowess enough left after perfecting his 
invention to fight them off and to get it 
patented ; and he had the revenue from 
it for years. He was also made inspector 
of the product of the Haydenville works, 
and in the changes that time wrought, 
two of his sons came to manage the 
works. ^ 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 85 

The other lieutenant governor from 
western Hampshire was Horatio G. 
Knight, one of the associates of Samuel 
Williston in founding the industries that 
have given Easthampton its name in the 
business world. He was a trustee, named 
in Mr. Williston's will, of the seminary 
at Easthampton bearing the name of the 
founder. Mr. Knight was a man of such 
eminent business ability that he was given 
by the governor the chairmanship of im- 
portant committees of the gubernatorial 
council. And he was often charged with 
the duty of auditing the accounts of those 
expending the state's millions on the 
building of the Hoosac Tunnel. So 
honorable a business man was he that 
when the corporation of which he was a 
manager was crippled for business,, 
through others than himself, and was 
obliged to close the factory, men whose 
names he had forgotten volunteered the 
money necessary to put the company on 



l86 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

its feet again ; and they made him pres- 
ident and treasurer of the company and 
manager of the factory at Easthampton 
and the sales house in New York. And 
the works were only closed three weeks, 
before the wheels were again moving with 
Mr. Knight in charge. A public spirited 
•citizen and a man whose generous im- 
pulses led him to be helpful to the poor, 
he naturally came to be popular, and he 
had many friends who wanted to send 
him to congress. But there were those 
even among his own townsmen who were 
jealous of Mr Knight and did their best 
to defeat him in the convention where a 
nomination that was equal to an election 
was his due. In this they were success- 
ful. Then a few precious prigs, by schem- 
ing, brought about a church trial of the 
man. But they were not only defeated but 
so routed as to ' * make abundant sport to 
after days." A native of Easthampton, he 



OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 8/ 

lived to see and to help it grow to a place 
of great importance. And there he died 
at a good old age. 

Some of the old republicans remain to 
review the scenes of the political contests 
in which they participated years ago. 
And at times they thrill with almost their 
former interest over battles fought and 
victories won. Others of their number 
have gone to a country from whence have 
come as yet no reports that the inhabi- 
tants participate in political campaigns. 

Before the active days of the old repub- 
licans were over the labor reformers 
appeared — an ''element'* with questions to 
be answered similar to those propounded 
by the socialists of today. If some of 
these radicals are like other beginners in 
causes, crude in their ideas, narrow 
in their views, picturesque in their ear- 
nestness, and evidently more bent on 
breaking than on building, there are 
others who, like C. C. Hitchcock of Ware 



l88 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 

are sensible as well as earnest, and who 
give their peculiar creed the benefit of 
their public spirit as citizens and their 
honorable career as business men. 

An interested observer of the old guard 
republicans of western Massachusetts in 
their active days, was one who, only a boy 
at the time, has since then at the call of 
the people of all sections of the state, 
taken part in managing its affairs, one who 
has done his work so wisely and so well 
as to satisfy the best citizens of all parties 
and to win for the name of Governor 
Crane national distinction. 



SOME "MRS. PARTINGTONS." 

THE late Mr. Shillaber would have 
been surprised to have learned how 
many ''Mrs. Partingtons " there 
were in real life. And how many there 
are still — how many people there are 
who, in their vanity wishing to use words 
that shall make them appear especially 
learned, vault to the use of words whose 
meanings are laughably different from 
that at which they aim. To begin the 
enumeration of these blunderers at 
Springfield, Mass. — there's a business 
man there who gears himself in dress 
shirts, flaunts diamonds and pretends to 
be correct, in dress and speech, who, 
when speaking of one party to a proposed 
business transaction making advances 
or offers for the other to consider and, 
who when evidently wanting to say 



IQO SOME **MRS. PARTINGTONS. 



> » 



** overture/* which would be allowable, 
though rather stilted for a proposition 
about a contract for a plumber's job, gets 
himself into the scene of a public demon- 
stration over a popular hero and tells 
about the contractor in question ' ' making 
an ovation" to the party of the second 
part in the proposed contract. The same 
man tells about a dog always ' ' mimicking 
his master," which would be declaring 
that a dog copies his master in ridicule, 
as a dog never does. Evidently the man 
means to say that the dog copies or imi- 
tates his master. 

In spite of the fact that seriousness and 
reverence are due in a church prayer 
meeting, when, as in a Springfield church, 
the leader of the meeting reverts a dozen 
times in succession to God's ' ' gui-di-ance" 
of the children of Israel on their journey, 
the blunder tends to awaken amusement — 
especially when the man caps the climax 
by speaking of the '^subsidary" matters 
of the journey. 



SOME '' MRS. PARTINGTONS." I9I 

There's a business man in '' shop row/* 
Northampton, Mass., who is an industri- 
ous Mrs. Partington ; and a Fitchburg 
railroad conductor who is a very faithful 
man at his work persistently uses the 
word ' ' dififuculty " for difficulty. But 
perhaps Huntington can claim the palm 
for having had the most of a Mrs. Par- 
tington. And to give the town still more 
significance in this direction, there were 
two of these blunderers, a man and his 
wife. They lived a short distance west 
of -'the green." It is recalled that the 
man, in answer to an inquiry in reference 
to his hand trembling as he signed a pay- 
roll at one of the shops where he worked, 
remarked that '' it is a sort of inheritance 
that has come down to me from my 
posterity." To a minister some of his 
parishioners presented, to give him a 
specimen of the product of one of the 
industries of the village, one of the 
Hannum axes so well known of yore in 



192 SOME *'MRS. PARTINGTONS. 



> ♦ 



country stores in western Massachusetts 
and among the farmers and wood-choppers 
of that region. The handle of the ax was 
also made in one of the Huntington shops, 
and the Mrs. Partington man was the 
spokesman for the donors. His wife 
afterward remarked, in giving an account 
of the happening, that he had ''placed 
the utensils of his name on the handle!'' 
In remarking to a neighbor about the 
absence from town of several official 
members of the ''sewing society,'* she 
declared that " all the duties of the man- 
agement of its affairs revolved upon her." 
In after years these Huntington Parting- 
tons lived elsewhere. One of their 
whilom neighbors at Huntington had 
gone thence to reside at Northampton. 
There the Mrs. Partington woman called 
on her acquaintance, whose son, at his 
mother's request, took the visitor out to 
drive, and, "just for the notion of it," 
hitched one of his span of horses ahead 



SOME **MRS. PARTINGTONS/' I93 

of the other. In giving an account of 
her visit she declared that she actually 
** rode after a tantrum team!" Now 
comes a Westfield lady, resident in these 
days in a coast town near Boston, and 
attempts to rob Huntington of its Par- 
tington fame and eclipse the glory of 
'^Falley's cross roads" and the fame of 
^* Chester village." The Westfielder 
tells of an acquaintance of hers whose 
wife, on being questioned in reference to 
the kind of a sewing machine which she 
had bought, said that it was a **dome 
stick." And with that single speci- 
men of Partington speech this Woronoco 
woman supposes the Huntington pair are 
relegated to oblivion as comparatively 
inconsequential. Not a bit of it I 
*' Falley's cross roads " still to the front! 
And any one still living who was 
acquainted at ''the village" of yore will 
recall the names of these champion claim- 
ants for the honor of having been the 



194 SOME '*MRS. PARTINGTONS 



» » 



originals of Mr. Shillaber's portrait. If 
these two people of '*the village*' itself 
are not enough to substantiate the claim 
of that place, the case of a fellow from 
near there who went to war as a member 
of the forty-sixth Massachusetts regiment 
may be taken. The comrades of his 
company were annoyed by his ill timed 
and cow like marching, that, as he being 
of medium height was midway in the 
company, would throw them out of step, 
whether they were in company or regi- 
mental drill, and were marching by the 
'' right flank " or ''left flank." And again 
like every ignoramus he thought he knew 
everything. These facts were doubtless 
reasons that aided them in appreciating 
his speech. In referring to infantry 
regiments going on an expedition sup- 
ported by mounted soldiers he spoke of 
the horsemen as ''hoss calvary'' and of 
the command '' bivowking " in a cornfield. 
To him the steamer named for the well- 



SOME *'MRS. PARTINGTONS/' I95 

known organist, Dudley Buck, and in 
war days used in transporting troops in 
the Carolina waters, was the '* Deadly 
Buck!" 

Meriden, Ct., too, puts in a claim for a 
case of Mrs. Partington. But Meriden 
that is smart knows enough to be reason- 
able and not attempt to claim honors not 
her own. The story goes that a woman 
in that city whose husband had made a 
neat sum selling beef to '' nutmeggers " — 
and how *'cluss he had figgered " it 
wouldn't do to tell — and had done well 
speculating therewith in Kansas lands, 
remarked concerning his successful vent- 
ure: '* If Joseph keeps on in this way 
he'll become a milliner before long!" 
Verily, the satire of Mr. Shillaber was 
appropriate and fitted to many a Yankee 
neighborhood. 



ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL 

OTHER things being equal, men of 
old New England were appreciated 
in the various callings according 
to the individuality they possessed and 
exhibited. Those were the times for the 
development of individuality. The life 
of those days furnished the atmosphere 
in which the men of individuality could 
breathe and thrive, those days of simpler 
life — those days of less regime than now 
there is, less of method — method that 
manacles, system that belittles — regime, 
and method and system that reduce the 
men regulated by them, from men to mere 
automatons. In the old days of simpler 
life and of more individuality, workmen 
had ambition to be efficient and their 
efficiency was appreciated. Fostered by 
this appreciation, the workmen came to 



ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 1 97 

take pride in doing their work well. 
Hence the good results of their efforts — - 
results not the product of the toil of 
human machines, but the results of the 
work of men of intelligence and individu- 
ality ambitious to do their best. And 
one of the results of these efforts was the 
personal development gained by the 
workers in their work, the increase of 
facility for doing the work and the in- 
crease of ambition to do it well. But 
whatever the efficiency for his work 
which any workman gained from that 
work, more important still his growth in 
his characteristics as a man. One of the 
truths taught by preachers and teachers 
was that a principal object, if not the 
chief object, of working was the develop- 
ment that work gave the worker. And 
yet the longer the workman kept at that 
work the more apparent was the fact of 
that work being his calling, — or it be- 
came evident that he was out of his 



198 ON BOAT, BOK AND RAIL. 

sphere. And, generally, the man who 
had missed his calling had the good 
sense to see the fact. With the excep- 
tions of these mistaken ones aside, work- 
men were fit for the calling in which 
they labored. They showed their indi- 
viduality in their work and had charac- 
teristics as men beyond their skill as 
workmen. This was true of farmers, 
store keepers, blacksmiths, wagon- 
makers, shoe-makers in their shops and 
journeymen cobblers going from house 
to house to mend shoes, school masters, 
preachers, doctors, printers at the case, 
editors of the family papers, tavern 
keepers, stage drivers, river boat men — 
in short, men of every calling. To the 
most casual observer it was evident that 
the workman was fit for his calling and 
that more important than that fitness 
were his characteristics as a man. And 
these characteristics made him the better 
workman and made him better known in 
his calling. 



ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. I99 

Wno, for instance, that saw the old 
time river boat *'cap'n" either on his craft 
on the Connecticut, or ashore at Middle- 
town, or '*'Arford," or Springfield, or 
South Hadley Falls — beg pardon shades 
of departed tars — or at *'the canal," or 
^' Hamp or Hocky," or at '' Cheapside" — 
who that ever saw him on board his 
boat or off duty, but could see he was 
'' cap'n ''? And so, too, of his crew. 

And as to those whips of the stage 
coach days, — couldn't any man ** with 
half an eye '' and a half mile off, tell that 
Oscar J. Brown of Claremont, N. H. was 
a stage driver? And when, years after 
he had gone out of business or had come 
down from driving on a route of eighty 
miles to running on one of two miles, 
who but could see that in his day he was a 
prince among the * 'whips," and, see, too, 
that his day hadn't yet gone by? Why, 
there was something even in the way 
he held "the leathers" to keep his 



200 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 

f otir-in-hand down to a walk that revealed 
him as the finished driver. And the way, 
thereafter, he snapped those lines to let 
the horses know they were then wanted 
to do their best — that was art itself. 
And didn't Ginery Twitchell of the old 
'*Barre route" understand horses and 
human nature ? And from understandings 
horses that he drove and men and women 
that were his passengers, he came natur- 
ally to the study of politics and easily 
learned how to win votes and get to 
congress. If there was an old timer that 
didn't know before seeing him that 
Horatio Sargent of Springfield was a 
stage driver, it didn't take long after a 
glance at the man to divine the fact that 
*' old Sarge " was a *' whip." A partner 
of his was Chester W. Chapin, who, like 
their contemporary Twitchell became 
railroad manager and a member of 
congress. 'Tis said that ' ' Uncle " Chester 
always had a thought for ** Sarge" and 



ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 201 

for the sake of '' auld lang syne " always 
had a job on his road for *'Sarge's" 
friends. Known to '*Sarge," '^Ginery*' 
and *' Uncle Chester" was the well re- 
membered and jovial ''Major" Frank 
Morgan of Palmer, acquaintance between 
whom and Chapin dated back to staging 
times. James Parker, another staging 
day acquaintance, always had a good job 
on Chapin's road. Verily the fraternity 
of the '' whips " counted for much. It is 
said, by the way, that a well known 
Springfield livery stable keeper started 
the movement to make *' Uncle Chester " 
congressman, taking for his strategy the 
opportune time when the republicans, 
diwSappointed by their favorite refusing to 
run, had nominated a man who, though 
a good manager for others was likely to 
prove a poor man to win votes for him- 
self. A stage driver of note in his day, 
but who is forgotten by all but a few, was 
'* Uncle Armor" Hamilton, who drove 



202 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 

on the route from Springfield through 
Westfield over the hill-top town of 
Blandford where he lived, and west- 
ward from there. Mr. Hamilton was a 
Methodist and was grandfather of that 
unique man of talent of later years. Elder 
H. L. Hastings. Mrs. Johnston, a 
daughter of Mr. Hamilton, was well 
known in other days at Middletown, Ct., 
where her husband was for years profes- 
sor in the university. One of the Holyoke 
Congregational churches in later years 
had a deacon whose abundant fund of 
knowledge of men and things with which 
he enlivened his prayer meeting talks 
was largely gained from observation of 
people and happenings on his stage route 
from northern Worcester across country 
to Springfield. 

And what men of individuality were 
some of the hack drivers? One of these 
was Eno Burt of Chicopee, who was well 
known half a century ago as driver of a 



ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 203 

public coach about the village of ' * Cabot- 
ville," as Chicopee centre was then called. 
Never to be forgotten the readiness of 
this driver to take passengers who were 
in a hurry. And how well he tried to 
get them to their destination on the time 
promised. And never to be forgotten 
that pet ejaculation of his to his horses, 
*'Come, now, pulverize here — pulverize !** 
Exactly what there was in the meaning 
of the word used to suggest speed to this 
' * whip*' no one knew. But when he uttered 
it, especially if he spoke it the second 
time, his horses knew they were expected 
to be swift of foot — and they were. And 
the driver came to be called by the word 
he used. Known was ''Old Pulverize" 
to all the ancient dwellers at * ' Cabotville" 
and at '' Skip" that was such a rival to 
''Cabot, "and known, too, was he at 
Springfield as well. Dame Rumor, the 
gossip, has it that this "whip" who really 
deserved to spend his last days in peace 



204 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 

and comfort finally came to want and 
died '* by strangers mourned," if not ''by 
strangers honored." 

As the boatmen and the '' whips " of 
the old days were men of individuality, so 
were the men '' on the iron " in the early 
days of railroading. And by the indi- 
viduality shown in their work they came 
to be known. For instance, who that 
saw forty years ago — or was it forty-five 
or more since he went from his home in 
West Orange to get a job railroading? — 
who that saw Samuel N. Holden running 
as brakeman on the old ''Vermont and 
Massachusetts" road, but could have 
predicted that he would grow in fitness 
for the business, till, very tall though 
he was, he became a railroad man every 
inch of his towering height. And, 
first as brakeman and now for a third of 
a century and more as conductor, and 
working in that time for three companies, 
a faithful man he has been, ever ready 



ON EOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 205 

"for his duties and efficient in their per- 
formance. And, a well preserved veteran, 
he is at it still. And glad, by the way, 
is he that the *'B. &M.*' management 
doesn't seek to repress all the individual- 
ity of their men as do other great com- 
panies. And how many of his early 
comrades in work he has outlived — Jacob 
H. Bangs, *' Jake " that everybody knew 
and liked; Horatio Miller who ran the 
first train through the Hoosac Tunnel; 
the keen-eyed Kingsbury whose *'orbs"al- 
ways twinkled with intelligence and who 
did his work well; and George Bonner, 
quick in motion though he was very short 
and chubby, Bonner who in statute con- 
trasted with Mr. Holden as a hazel tree 
with the lofty elm, though in amplitude 
in other directions measuring up nearly to 
the aldermanic Cone of the Tunnel line. 
One of the best of the engineers on the 
wrhilom *' Western road'* and later day 
'' Boston and Albany," that has now also 



206 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 

come to be a thing of the past, was Otis 
S. Taylor, who still lives. And of his 
experiences ''on the iron'* he naturally 
takes now and then a retrospect. A 
native of North Chester, he came from 
there when but a boy, and soon, by his 
evident trustworthiness and willingness 
to work, secured a job as fireman. He 
oiled and ''fed'* the '* machines" run 
between Springfield and Worcester by 
Cyrus Nichols, James Baker, Luther 
Stearns, John Mulligan (afterward 
"super" on the "River road") and 
Isaac Wadleigh — " Ike " Wadleigh, the 
daring, yet ever careful man. 

Later Taylor was engineer between. 
Springfield and Pittsfield. And of an 
experience of his on this section of the 
road, an experience in which he behaved 
with great presence of mind, let the 
account be in the words of an acquaintance 
of his: " Ote Taylor, I'm right glad to 
see you! How many times I've thought 
over, since reading the story in a Spring- 



ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 20/ 

field paper, that bridge burnin' an' car 
burnin' accident at Russell, away back — 
let me see, let me see, — if 'twasn't thirty 
years ago — that time when the bridge 
back of you was a-goin' down — the back 
end of the bridge off the 'butment, the 
bridge with your engine an' tender on it, 
all at an angle o' forty-five, an' a-goin' back 
into the chasm sure. Then you thought 
an' acted, throwin' on all the power o' 
the machine ter once, breakin' the 
shackle between the tender an' train quick 
aslightnin' and shootin' engine an' tender 
up the grade of the bridge an' along the 
iron. So you an' the fireman an' engine 
were saved. One of the cars in the 
wreck was an oil car that somehow took 
fire. So's 'twas not only a smash-up, 
T3nt a burn-up. That's the time that 
Arthur Bills w^as burned up — poor fellow 
— just afore the car took fire he was 
heard ter call out, ' Are any of the boys 
hurt?' An' all the time he was in the 
worst trouble of any of 'em." 



208 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 

One of Taylor*s associates running 
over the mountain section was ''Steve" 
Cornell, who still survives and who, 
when not thinking of the old days, and. of 
the '* old boys" on ''the iron," delights 
himself with essays on nature. Another 
associate of " Ote " was " Cy " Worthy, 
who has gone. He was of gigantic size ; 
and contrasting with him was another of 
Taylor's fellows, who, years ago, ran his 
last trip. This was Lewis Sherts, the 
Pennsylvanian, who came up to run on a 
Yankee road, and who, tiny man though 
he was, managed a great locomotive 
skillfully. Still another who has gone 
was " Ike " Davee, " Ike " Davee as bold 
and as careful as was " Ike " Wadleigh. 
There was " Cale " Briggs, too, that 
dearly loved hens and "Jack" Roach, 
who ran the wrecking train and who 
could ejaculate to his gang. Of these 
and others of their departed comrades 
Taylor and " Steve" think often, and, of 
course, kindly. 



Ai in Q 



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AUG 30 1902 

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